Measure 65: Open Primaries

"But we’re willing to give 65 a try because the current system is broken."

This is the standard nonsensical non-argument everybody gives. If your framing is so childish that (and the WWeek endorsement board definitely fits into that category reading the vacuousness of these endorsements) believe something is "broken", it's the voters and politicians who make up this game, not the system. I listened to Keisling, truly the kind of egotistical incompetent Oregonians deserve defend his proposal with non-sequitors and outright lies at the Ciry Club. It was a pathetic performance. Roberts, sadly, was a woman who was not actually competent enough to do the job, as much as I hoped she was when I voted for her.

As a famous comedian says: "You can't fix stupid", and certainly not by changing how an election is run in a way that narrows the political debate. Some Oregonians have come to believe their own BS about how we are "leaders" and "special" far too much for our own good when the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary. THAT's why we have problems getting things done here.

WWeek, sells out, just like EVERY OTHER editorial board. I was hoping this would be different as I left a commont on another article where you shilled for it, but scolded me since you hadn't endorsed it "yet".

Look at the big businesses and special interests supporting this measure. It's a travesty of corporatism.

saveoregonsdemocracy.org/

Is it a surprise that the city club gave a unanimous rejection? They actually investigated and analyzed the effects of this measure. You, unfortunately, didn't.

This measure encodes the two party system and works against majority vote, and it would destroy my party, the Pacific Greens. Think about that. It's not just that we're left out of the general election. The general election is HOW we maintain ballot access.

Why make sure to count our votes accurately when the outcome is merely random based on what candidate appears, too? Louisiana is rife with examples. I wrote an article on about a dozen bad examples in Washington's recent results.

I don't mind so much that it destroys my third party. The fact that majority vote, which I'm camapaigning in support of, with Ranked Choice Voting (or Instant Runoff Voting), is thrown out the window is more critical to my opposition.

If this passes, can I expect WWeek to come out in support of a fix for the majority vote problem? I'll be working on that campaign in the next election cycle.

Measure 65 will destroy most of Oregon's minor political parties, reduce voter choices, confuse the ballots, reward dirty politicking, and likely fail its purpose of electing moderate candidates.

Measure 65 Destroys Most Minor Parties

Today, Oregon's six minor parties can provide good alternatives to Democratic and Republican candidates in the general election. But Measure 65, the "top two primary" on the November ballot, effectively abolishes the Pacific Green, Constitution, Working Families, and Peace parties by removing their legal basis (getting 1% of the vote in the previous statewide general election). Even if a candidate registered in or endorsed by a minor party were somehow to qualify for the general election ballot, that candidate's vote total would not count toward the 1% requirement, because the only votes that count are those of candidates who are nominated by a minor party, and Measure 65 eliminates all party nominations.

Thus, under Measure 65, the 4 smallest minor parties will cease to exist as of November 2010. Each can continue to exist after that only if it has increased its registered membership to about 10,500 ( ½ of 1% of all Oregon registered voters). The Constitution and Working families would need to increase their memberships by a factor of 4 or 5. The Peace Party would need to increase by a factor of 100. The Pacific Green Party would need a 25% expansion of membership.

Measure 65 also removes all citiizen-sponsored candidates from the general election ballot, including those supported by tens or even hundreds of thousands of voter signatures.

Remaining Parties Subject to Identify Theft

Under Measure 65, any resident can register as, say, a Democrat (up to the 70th day before the primary election) and immediately file as a candidate, with "Registered: Democratic" next to his name on the ballot. That person might be a Nazi, a Communist, a convicted child molester, you name it. Any political party can have its identity stolen in this way by complete strangers who suddenly take the party's name on the primary ballot.

Measure 65 will thus force minor parties to endorse candidates they don't agree with, just to oppose the strangers on the ballot suddenly displaying their party names. Minor parties currently don't field candidates for every partisan office, rarely nominating more than a few candidates for the 75 races for the Oregon Legislature, for example. To avoid having their party labels hijacked by strangers, each minor party will be forced to endorse major-party candidates in those races, even if those candidates vehemently disagree with the minor party on the issues. This will further erode the identity of each minor party, which is usually based on a coherent, but not “mainstream,” political philosophy. Each minor party will be forced to give up its philosophy and defensively endorse major party candidates, to avoid the strong implication of support for the stranger who suddenly hijacks the party's name on the primary ballot.

Each major or minor party will fight the resulting confusion by endorsing a candidate in each race, since Measure 65 also allows party endorsements to appear on the ballot. No party would rationally endorse more than one candidate per race, as that would split the votes of the party faithful and actually harm its endorsed candidates' chances to finish in the "top two" and advance to the general election. If voters were to pay attention and tend to follow these party endorsements, Measure 65 will, in effect, replace the major-party primaries with backroom endorsement deals. I would expect voters to pay great attention to the party endorsements on the ballot, because that will be the only reliable indicator of which candidate is, for example, the "true Democrat" or the "true Republican" and not merely a stranger or, as noted below, a ringer. I would also expect, at least in all statewide races, that the single endorsed Democrat and the single endorsed Republican would be the "top two" in the primary and advance to the general election ballot. Thus, the end result of Measure 65 will be to replace each party's primary with an unknown backroom process for endorsing one candidate in each race who is virtually guaranteed to advance to the general election. Instead of voters deciding who is nominated by each major party, it will be party operatives and high-rollers who decide, with their party endorsement labels on the ballot, which candidates go to the general election.

The "Ringer" Primary

Under Measure 65, primary elections could become a game of "ringers," with political consultants recruiting candidates just to split the votes of the other parties. Republican consultants could recruit people to register and file as "Democratic" candidates, splitting the Democratic vote. Democrats could recruit phony "Republicans." Both of them could recruit phony "Independents" and phony "Libertarians," further increasing the party identity theft.

Expect a confusing ballot, with a dozen or more candidates for each major office who are "Registered" and/or "Endorsed" the surviving parties. In primary elections since 1979 in Louisiana, the only state where the Measure 65 system has operated for a full election cycle, there have been nine, nine, eight, 12, 16, 11, 17, and 12 candidates on the ballot for governor alone.

Not Necessarily Advance Moderate Candidates

Measure 65 will not necessarily achieve the stated goal of its supporters--to advance moderate candidates to the general election. In Louisiana, it has advanced extremists, as the moderate vote is split among several moderate candidates in the primary. Ku Klux Clan leader David Duke has twice advanced to the statewide Louisiana general election. Of the 16 candidates for Governor in 1995, the top two (with 26% and 19% of the vote in the primary) were the two considered most extreme by conventional political observers. The organization FairVote states:

A Republican state legislator, Duke ran a strong second in the 1990 U.S. Senate election and gained a spot in the runoff election in the governor's race in 1991. In that 1991 runoff, he faced Edwin Edwards, a former governor with a history of suspected corruption. Indicating the polarized nature of the choice between Duke and Edwards, a popular bumper sticker in favor of Edwards was: "Vote the Crook: It's Important."

In the 1995 governor's race, sixteen candidates ran in the opening round, including four major candidates who ultimately won at least 18% of the vote. The two most ideologically extreme major candidates were Mike Foster, a conservative Republican who earned Pat Buchanan's endorsement and inherited much of David Duke's constituency, and Cleo Fields. a leading liberal Democrat in the Congressional Black Caucus. They advanced to the runoff election with a combined vote of only 45% of votes casts, with the more centrist vote split among other candidates. Foster ultimately was elected in the runoff election.

A Louisiana-style nonpartisan primary easily can produce these kind of results because in a large field of candidates, the top two vote-getters can have relatively few votes. In a multi-candidate field, this rule tends to favor non-moderate candidates with the strongest core support that can be narrow rather than broad.

Former Governor Edwin Edwards is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for corruption.

For more reading on this subject, see:

www.nwprogressive.org/Special/Prima...

southerncrown.blogspot.com/2005/09/...

southerncrown.blogspot.com/2004/10/...

www.fairvote.org/irv/louisiana.htm

We don't need open primaries. I am a registered party member for the priviliage of helping my party chose the right candidate for the final election. If you don't want to be affiliated with a party, that's fine. You can still vote on non-party issues in the primary and all issues in the november elections. Stop trying to infringe on my option to chose.

VOTE NO!!

The excessive partisanship has nothing to do with the primary system. It is social and cultural factors. Measure 65 is the result of fuzzy, feeble thinking.

No one is being excluded from the primaries except by their own choice, and of all the things that are broken about our system, this is hardly something to be concerned with.

Vote NO!

I agree with Greekskye.

Vote NO on Measure 65!

I'd like to make a few points against measure 65:

First, this measure basically moves the "spoilers" from the General Election to the Primary Election. If you have a politically diverse region, then minor party candidates who could not win in the Primary would draw voters away from a more popular candidate, thus denying either candidate a spot in the General Election. With this scenario, you could end up with two candidates from the same party in an area where that party is actually a minority.

Second, to guarantee that the above situation does not happen, I could see prospective candidates being cajoled by private interests out of running in the Primary Election, thus removing the choice from voters entirely.

Third, in some areas, it is probable that the two candidates sent on to the General Election will be from the same party anyway. That means that anyone not of that party would either have to vote for a candidate they don't want (the lesser of two evils) or not vote at all. In those areas, even more voters would be disenfranchised during the General Election than they currently are during the Primary.

Finally, there is also the assumption that a majority of voters who vote for third party candidates in the General Election would otherwise vote for the non-winning candidate if they did not have their preferred choice. This is only an assumption and can never be truly tested. I would argue that many of those voters would not vote at all (or write in a name) instead of voting for one of the offered candidates.

More ideas about measure 65...Mom

Please VOTE NO on Measure 65!!!

Measure 65 attempts to eliminate a registered voter’s right to choose their party’s nominee and allow any voter to choose an opposing party's candidates. So basically, Republicans can choose who will represent the Democratic ticket, and Democrats will choose who will represent the Republican ticket.

Think about sports teams. Lets say the Lions and the Tigers are choosing their new players from the draft. Each team will pick the best players for their team. But if the Lions fans get to choose the Tigers players, they will pick the worst ones. And if the Tigers fans get to choose the Lions players, they will also pick the worst ones. So instead of having the best players drafted, only the worst ones will be.

It will be the same with politics. Only the worst candidates will make it through the primaries, giving us a choice between the worst of the worst in the fall. And the third party candidates, who are entitled to representation will lose the opportunity to be in the race because the top two tickets (Republican and Democrat) will always outnumber them.

But don’t just take my word for it. Marilyn Vos Savant, the person with the highest IQ in the world and her own syndicated column, was asked about this primary voting system earlier in the year, and she points out the potential for serious problems:

“Instead of so many primaries, including separate ones for the major parties, couldn’t we have one “Primary Day,” when all voters could choose from any candidate in any party? The winners from each party would face one anoth-er on Election Day.

—Pat Delaney, Trenton, N.J.

Such a primary would lend itself to tactical shenanigans. For instance, say there were two good Purple Party candidates, six good Pink candidates and one bad Pinkie. The Purple partiers could join ranks and vote for the bad Pink candidate, thus making him or her the likely Pink winner—and sinking the Pinks on Election Day. With no bad Purple candidate, the Pink partiers would be at a disadvantage if they’d tried similar mischief against the Purples on Primary Day.”

So please, vote NO ON MEASURE 65. It is literally a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ that is attempting to LIMIT our choices!!!

Link to Marilyn Vos Savant column:

www.parade.com/articles/editions/20...

Minor parties are not of one mind on Measure 65. The Independent Party and the Working Families Party have stayed neutral because they are supportive of fusion voting which allows minor parties to cross nominate major party candidates OR to run their own candidates. Measure 65 makes that possible in both the primary and general elections. Most people are not paying attention to that part of the "Open Primary" Measure, but it is what makes this approach unique to Oregon and far more interesting that Washington State's new primary system. Measure 65 will not destroy minor parties; to the contrary it will give them a chance to have an actual impact on issues. All parties, major or minor, will have to have a minimum number of registrants (approximately 10,000) to remain qualified as a party, but this will be much easier to do if voters know that they can be registered Working Families Party and still vote in the primary. To learn more see: ballotfreedom.wordpress.com

An election process should ensure that the candidate best liked (or least disliked) by the majority of the people is elected, but as many of the above commentators explain, an open primary can allow candidates least liked by the majority to win when they have the backing of a dedicated minority if many better liked candidates split the majority vote.

Wouldn't it be better to keep the present closed primary system but have a run-off election between the top two vote-getters in the general election if neither candidate receives a majority of the votes in the general? If that had been done on a national level in the 2000 election, we would probably have had 8 years of President Al Gore instead of President George Bush.

Dan Meeks presumes that the standard for party qualification would remain the same. The current system is pretty arcane, in some places specifying a percentage of the number of votes cast in the gubernatorial election, in others a percentage of the registered voters. You have to get a bunch of people 20,000+ to say they want to have a party (they don't actually have to register with the party or even intende to do so), but then you only have to get 1400 to register with the party (and even less if you have good timing) in order to attempt to get more votes in one statewide race every election.

If you couldn't get the legislature to change the standard, take it to court. Oregon can not justify telling a party that to maintain its status that it must "nominate" a candidate who gets 1%+ of the vote in the general election AND tell them it is illegal to "nominate" candidates for the general election.

If you want to maintain the flavor of the existing law, apply the 1% of votes standard to all candidates who are party registrants and endorsed by that party, or who are endorsed solely by the party.

Or simply reduce the registration standard, and don't worry about whether the party is "successful" otherwise.

It should be noted that the current system makes it difficult for a party to maintain its qualified status. For example, the Pacific Greens lost 24% of their registrants in the 1st 6 months of this year, presumably by voters who wanted to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

The current system doesn't really provide much of a role for mere registrants in a minor party's activities. And they can still vote for the nominated candidates in the general election. So you end up with minor parties who exist merely to try to gain 1% of the vote, perhaps by targetting races like that for AG where there are not two major party candidates.

One should be careful when comparing turnout among different systems and different electorates.

For example, Governor Roberts mentioned the difference in turnout between Washington's August Top 2 primary, and Oregon's May primary. But does anyone seriously think that it was voters turning out for the CD-4 primary - and nothing to do with the Oregon holding its presidential primary at the same election, while Washington held its presidential primary separately?

While many have noted that the turnout was slightly down in the Washington Top 2 primary from 4 years ago when the Pick a Party primary was used, almost no one noticed that the actual votes cast for gubernatorial candidates was up by 10.7%. This despite a much more interesting primary race in 2004 when King County Executive Ron Sims was facing Christine Gregoire for the Democratic nomination. For 2008, the two candidates were decided during the long protracted recount of 2004.

In Washington's 2004 primary, voters were given one ballot that contained the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian primary races, but they had to then select a party (in secret) and were then obligated to stick to that party throughout all races.

But only 92.2% of voters picked a party. While it is true some of the 7.8% "non-partisan" voters may have proceeded down to the non-partisan Superintendent of Public Instruction and 3 Supreme Court races, it is unlikely. Only 60 to 68% of all voters expressed an opinion on these races.

So up to 7.8% of voters failed to pick a party, or refused to do so. But even among those who did "pick" a party, 4.6% did not vote for a gubernatorial candidate. Either they simply skipped the top of the statewide ballot, or voted for a candidate of another party just as they had almost always been able to do. Almost the same number skipped the US senate race.

In 2008, 99.1% of those who voted, expressed a preference for governor.

Summary:

2004

1,480,247 voted. 1,303,024 for governor. 177,223 skipped governor's races.

2008

1,455,701 voted. 1,442,456 for governor, 13,245 skipped governor's race.

It is premature to judge the eventual effect of Top 2 in Washington. The US Supreme Court did not overturn the lower federal courts decision until March, and the filing deadline was only a couple of months later. Most serious candidate for election in November would have made their decision long before then. More independent-minded candidates may have made their decision to not seek office based on the system they thought they were going to run under. Other candidates would have made their decision based on which incumbents would be term-limited or were not seeking re-election.

It was suggested that the turnout for runoffs in Louisiana was less than for the general election. This is simply not true for the main statewide elections where there is a runoff.

Louisiana has a different electoral calendar than most states. It conducts its state and legislative elections in odd years. For the most part, the only elections conducted in the fall are for federal office: president, senator, and us house. In addition, Louisiana doesn't use a Top 2 system like that which is being used in Washington for the first time this election (for most offices) and Nebraska for the past 70 years for its legislature and is proposed for Oregon for most offices.

So in Louisiana, if the leading gubernatorial candidate has a majority in the general election there will be no runoff, but there may be runoffs for down ballot races. Fewer people care about who the state treasurer is, and there may be legislative runoffs in relatively few districts. In an urban area with many legislative districts, there will be little news coverage of a single race in part of the area.

In the 2002 senate race, turnout for the runoff was 99% of the general election. In the 1991 gubernatorial race, turnout was up 12% for the David Duke-Edwin Edwards runoff; in 1995 it was down 5%; and in 2003 it was even.

Louisiana does not permit write-in voting. If there is only one candidate who has filed for a race, that race is left off the ballot.

Prior to 2000, Louisiana held its congressional elections in September/October. If a runoff was needed it was held on the national November election date. Runoffs for congressional races were so uncommon that the US Supreme Court ruled that this violated federal law as to when the election of US Representatives and Senators should be held.

But up until that time, the Clerk of the US House would show that NO votes were cast in those Louisiana races without runoffs. Add up the votes, and it looks like "congressional turnout" is low. Ane even if the October turnout is used, it should be remembered that there were no gubernatorial or presidential races on the ballot to draw voters to the polls.

Beginning in 2000, the congressional general election was switched to November (but there still would only be a statewide race if there was a concurrent presidential or senatorial election). And now the Court of Clerk records the votes for the runoff, where the vote would have dropped in those congressional races with a runoff.

For 2008, Louisiana has switched back to a conventional system of electing US representatives and senators, partisan primary + runoff, followed by a general election. But there are still no write-ins, and uncontested races do not appear on the ballot. As a result there will be one CD where there was no primaries, and there will be no general election, and the incumbent Charlie Melancon will have been elected with NO votes cast. In another CD, there was a 90:10 race for the Republican nomination, but no Democratic primary and there will be no general election.

Again the Clerk of the US House will show "low congressional" turnout in Louisiana.

It should of course be remembered that Louisiana has never used a Top 2 system as is proposed for Oregon, or used in Washington or Nebraska. So the issue of elections being cancelled in Louisiana is not relevant to Oregon.

A Top 2 system is not inimical to a ranked voting system. The fundamental idea behind a Top 2 system is that ANY person may put themselves before all the voters and THE PEOPLE choose THEIR officers.

Originally in America when paper ballots were used, voters would make their own on a sheet of paper, perhaps consulting a newspaper. Elections were write-in. Candidates might campaign, requesting candidates to write their name in. Some States required a majority for election. In Massachusetts, they had "trials" where if no candidate received a majority, they would have another trial election in a month, where new candidates might come forward or others retire. This process would continue until the winning candidate received a majority. Sometimes 6 or 7 trial elections were needed to elect a representative. Other States adopted a runoff system, and some permitted plurality election. But elections were open to all candidates and all voters.

As time went on, parties formed and as a "convenience" for voters they prepared printed ballots which voters could then deposit in the ballot box, in some cases editing the party's choices. But besides trying to get voters to take your party's ballot, you'd try to keep other parties from distributing their ballots. Or perhaps you would print some ballots made to look like another party's but with your candidates listed. Or perhaps some offices would be left off. Occasionally people were killed trying to deliver ballots, and there was always the risk of ballot stuffing when the party's had printed 100s of ballots. Voters could be bribed - and since the ballots had distinctive color or other appearance, voting was less secret.

The Australian ballot was intended to reform all this. An Australian ballot is printed by the government with all candidates' names on it, and voters then mark their choices in private.

One shortcoming of the Australian ballot is that candidates must file for office in advance so that their name may be printed on all ballots.

In Australia, the intent was to get get rid of all influence of political parties. In South Australia, nomination required two persons, a proposer and a seconder.

In the US, that might have happened as well. When the Australian ballot was proposed in New York, the governor vetoed it, saying that it would eliminate the right of personal nomination, where any voter could nominate a candidate simply by voting for him on election day.

Advocates of the Australian ballot claimed that qualification standards were so modest that it would actually help independent candidates and small parties since they would not have to print their own ballots. And there would still be the ability to cast a write-in vote.

They also argued that the period of pre-qualification to allow printing and distribution of ballots would be quite modest. For example, in Indiana for statewide races, candidates could qualify up to 3 weeks before election day and have their name printed on the ballots.

But relatively soon, political parties maneuvered for all their candidates chosen in smoke-filled rooms to qualify for the government-printed ballots. In many States, the ballots were arranged by party column, and a voter could select all the candidates of a party by making an X next to the picture of a chicken or other party symbol. In effect, the government had been subverted into distributing the ballots for the major political parties.

Since the legislator elected using this system were usually members of the parties, and beholden to the parties for their nomination, they would often work to increase legal barriers to other parties and candidates. Instead of gangs of thugs trying to keep other parties from distributing their ballots, gangs of lawyers would work to keep other parties and ballots from appearing on the government-printed ballots (for example Liz Holtzman's and the Democrats efforts to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot in 2004).

The citizens pushed back, and created the party primary. This took the selection of party candidates out of the back rooms, but it often required voters to make a public declaration of political faith in order to participate. It also meant that the government was often responsible for conducting the nominating activities of private organization, printing and distributing ballots, establishing laws governing their operations, often comingling them with the laws and procedures for actual public elections such that many if not most voters actually think of the party primaries as part of the public process of selecting candidates.

Institution of party primaries meant that filing deadlines were moved earlier and earlier. In some cases, "sore loser" laws prevented candidates who had been defeated in a primary from running as an independent candidate. Sometimes independent candidates were required to file at the same time as party candidates.

Credible candidates were often forced to seek nomination through a major political party. The legal barriers and perceptual barriers were simply too high for them to be considered on their own merits.

In total, the modern way that partisan primaries are conducted have totally corrupted the process of electing officials.

The only way to remove this corruption is to have a system where any person may run, and any voter may participate in all phases of the election.

It does not have to be Top 2. It could as easily use a ranked voting system where voters rank all candidates, and then through some counting algorithm the winner is determined. In Ireland where the single-transferable vote (STV) is used, it is considered a key feature that voters may rank the candidates of a single party.

Of course with such a system, there is no reason to have two elections.

Or perhaps there could be two stages. In the first stage, voters would simply indicate their first preference. A mild threshold (5%) could be applied, and then it could be determined which candidates would be eliminated as if the election were being conducted under AV.

The second stage would be conducted using AV. There would be fewer candidates, but sometimes more than 2. There would be opportunity for more considered debate, and the voters could take more care in their ranking. Most voters will become quite arbitrary when forced to rank 20 choices, but will have no problem ranking 3 to 5.

Dan Meeks suggests that there will be a risk of ringer candidates, that will split a party's vote. That doesn't speak too highly of that party's voters. In essence it suggests that there are a significant share of voters who have not a clue about who they are voting for, but will blindly vote for a candidate simply because there is a D or R next to their name.

Louisiana has many candidates in its governors races because it has easy ballot access (but no write-in voting). The filing fee for statewide office is $750. There can be a dozen such candidates that received 1% or fewer votes.

Under the Oregon proposal, ballot access would the same as current statewide non-partisan races (1000 signatures), which is low enough to permit anyone who really wants to get on the ballot to get on the ballot, but high enough to cut out vanity candidates.

Another factor in Louisiana gubernatorial elections is that they are held in the odd years. This means that US representatives can run for governor without relinquishing their seat in Congress. Such candidates can have strong regional support, which can lead to more divided voting results.

While parties could use a back room process to decide who they will endorse, this will simply provide an opening for independents. Under current law, though minor parties are free to devise their own methods of nomination, they are required to use a process which is open to registrants of the party. Under BM 65, the formal role for political parties under Oregon law will be be to endorse candidates. If the right to endorse is based on maintaining a certain percentage of registrants, the Oregon can continue to compel the parties to make their endorsement processes open to registrants.

Jim Riley is surprised that people vote without having a clue about what they are voting on? LOL

I don't know what world he is living in, but he is definately living in a different reality than most of us if he thinks the electorate is engaged in their responsibility to vote.

Of course many voters will vote largely based on party affiliation. Most people simply don't do the research necessary to be a responsible informed voter and choose instead to use the voters guide and purchased voter statements to base their decisions on.

But more importantly is that many voters vote based on these mindless 30 second attack ads without verifying the facts. These ads are purchased by the people who have raised significant campaign funds. Significant campaign funds are raised by those who are beholding to special interests. The result is that you have a legislature that is beholding to special interests and initiatives whose goals are to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

This is not that complicated folks.

Measure 65 will destroy minor parties and will create a situation where two Democrats run against one another and two Republicans run against one another depending on the demographics of the district.

The only hope we have of ever beginning to reform this broken democracy is have massive electoral reforms that increase the chances of the common man getting elected instead of the non-stop cesspool of professional politicians working for lobbyists.

Measure 65 makes that much less likely and strengthens the stranglehold that the corporate and special interests currently have on our legislature and what was supposed to be our citizen based initiative process.

Measure 65 equals less democracy, less choice, and more power to the special interests.

If "true choice" for the voter and true representation of all of Oregon's citizens is the real goal, then "instant runoff voting" towers above a top two primary system as a viable solution.

The good news is that IRV is already in the Oregon constitution and it doesn't require that we limit voter choices to the candidates who raise the most money from special interests.

I think I'm voting no, for the reasons outlined by several posters.

What about a system that is open, yet lets you rank all candidates of a particular race, similar to polls in college football? This would have the effect of putting weight on your second choice, and so on, so as to mitigate the effects of a vote split of the majority candidates.