A. Political Reform, 1. Electoral reform (b)

1. Name of party/caucus/committee and co-chair contact information- Revision submitted by GPCA; Co-chairs: Tarik Kanaana, Peggy Koteen

2. Brief explanation of approval process and date of approval-
The GPCA process is for 3 cosponsors of the delegation to offer the text, discuss the text for 3 days, make suggested edits that are accepted by the author/cosponsors, and a 3 day online vote. This was approved unanimously on 1/25/2024

3. Contact Information for author:
Peggy Koteen and Jared Laiti; pkoteen@aol.com; jared.laiti@gmail.com

4. Where in Platform is this addressed:
1. Democracy, A. Political Reform, 1. Electoral reform (b)
https://www.gp.org/democracy#electoral-reform

5. Current Language-

“Enact Ranked Choice Voting for chief executive offices like mayor, governor, and president and other single-seat offices including U.S. Senate. Under Ranked Choice Voting, voters can rank candidates in their order of preference (1,2,3, etc.) Ranked Choice Voting ensures that the eventual winner has majority support; and eliminates vote-splitting, allowing voters to express their preferences knowing that supporting their favorite candidate will not inadvertently help their least favored candidate. Ranked Choice Voting thus frees voters from being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, allows them to vote their hopes, not their fears, and saves public funds by eliminating unnecessary run-off elections.”

6. Proposed revision or amendment of the current language-
The text is cosponsored by Peggy Koteen, Jared Laiti, & Justin Richardson.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

While the GPUS Electoral Reform platform calls for proportional representation from multi-seat legislative districts and ranked-choice voting (RCV) for single-seat, executive office, it does not explicitly oppose the growing number attempts to retain single-seat, winner-take all legislative districts via instituting ‘top-x’ (top two, top four, two five) elections. “Top-x’ elections undermine attempts to achieve proportional representation by eliminating minor parties from the general election ballot and continuing to restrict representation to only one per legislative district https://ivn.us/posts/why-california-should-learn-from-maine-and-not-alaska-on-electoral-reform.

The current GPUS platform calls for RCV elections for single-seat, executive office and US Senate. But RCV could be used together with a top four/top five system to elect these offices, and minor parties like the Green Party would not be on the general election ballot. In response, this proposal would add language to support use of RCV in single-seat elections, while simultaneously retaining the right for all ballot-qualified parties to place their party’s nominee on the general election ballot in partisan elections. This proposal would then a add a new section specifically calling out opposition to top x systems overall.

PROPOSAL:

Part I:
Enact Ranked Choice Voting for chief executive offices such as mayor, governor, and president and other single-seat offices including U.S. Senate, while retaining the right for all ballot-qualified parties to place their party’s nominee on the general election ballot in partisan elections. Under Ranked Choice Voting, voters can rank candidates in order of preference (1,2,3, etc.). Ranked Choice Voting ensures that the eventual winner has majority support and eliminates vote-splitting, allowing voters to express their preferences knowing that supporting their favorite candidate will not inadvertently help their least favored candidate. Ranked Choice Voting frees voters from being pressured to choose between the lesser of two evils; allows them to vote their hopes, not their fears; and saves public funds by eliminating unnecessary run-off elections.”

Part II:

Add new subsection Electoral Reform 1(c) following the above section 1(b) on RCV, to read

Oppose ‘top-x’ (top two/four/five) primary elections for state and federal office, regardless of whether they utilize ranked-choice voting for the general election. Top-x elections are anti-democracy, anti-party, and misdirect voter frustration into counter-productive reform.

Instead of promoting proportional representation, top-x systems restrict representation to only one representative per legislative district. Instead of promoting voter choice, top-x systems eliminate a guaranteed place on the general election ballot for candidates from all ballot-qualified parties, and take away these parties’ right to nominate their own candidates.

Top-x primaries are not suitable to handle large numbers of competitive major party candidates, with competition among candidates of the same major parties that don’t actually represent significantly different policies crowding out minor parties with distinct perspectives.

Misleadingly, proponents of top-x primaries call them open primaries. Open primaries are systems that retain party primaries, but allow any voter to choose to vote in a party primary of their choice. Instead of promoting an inclusive multi-party system, top-x systems eliminate party primaries.