Considering Political Association

By Krist Novoselić
June 5, 2014

It is being reported that the turnout in Tuesday’s June 3 primary in California was “a little over 18 percent” — the worst ever for that state.

So what causes this kind of lousy voter participation? The study of politics is a soft science. There are many things pushing and pulling at this social system. I want to touch on the political association aspect of primary elections and how rules about parties could be depressing turnout.
 
Some reporting on last Tuesday’s primary referred to the candidates with the most votes as a “nominee”. The Top-Two primary in California is not a nominating primary – it is a qualifying primary. The top two vote getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the November ballot. In California, the party registration of the candidate allows them to use that party’s imprimatur on the ballot. This means the state is basically monopolizing nominations.
 
This monopoly is supposed to be in the state interest. One hundred years ago, political parties had a lot of power over who their candidates were. Party bosses chose their preferred candidates in smoke filled back rooms to dominate local and state government. Things were out-of-whack. As a result, states started to take over the nominating functions of parties as a way to restore some balance.
 
There is another way to lessen the influence of parties. In many local elections or in North Dakota legislative elections, ballots simply don’t have any party labels on them.
 
Let us fast forward to today to find that; things are out-of-whack again!
 
Today we have the shadow groups that dominate politics. On one side there are business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, and on the other there are groups like labor unions. Then there are the SuperPACs and independent expenditures funded by wealthy individuals.
 
There are still parties — they serve as soft-money conduits around individual campaign contribution limits. However, the parties as grassroots political associations are very weak.
 
One hundred years of scrubbing parties out of politics has taken its toll. Remember the soft science I mentioned above? It’s called sociology. People are social creatures with ensuing behaviors. My point is that if you take parties out of elections, other groups rise up.
 
Parties are supposed to pull people into the process. The party-faithful knock on doors, hand out leaflets or have coffee klatches. The party also can boil down issues for citizens to wrap their minds around. This is the function of the partisan ballot — voters, who are busy working, raising families and whatnot look for that party cue to choose a candidate.
 
Look at political science studies with mixed partisan with non-partisan ballots. They show most voters work their way down the ballot, then, when certain races feature no party label next to the candidate names, voters tend to not fill that portion of the ballot out. This is called drop-off or under-vote. California elections are now all non-partisan. It seems like state level voter participation is falling in line with local non-partisan elections. People are dropping off
 
Of course, there were party labels on Tuesday’s ballot. My point is that any connection to a grassroots group is gone. In California, all a candidate needs to do to get a party label next to their name is to register their party affiliation with a county official. Major party labels are just generalities that people associate with which party is, or is not, occupying the oval office. Who the heck knows what the respective platforms of the California GOP and Democratic Party are anyway? 3rd parties are even farther under the radar! Parties are a way for donors to pay for expensive media marketing and not the idea of an association amplifying the values of its members.
 
Even if parties start to come back as real associations, I have to ask; do people even have coffee klatches anymore? I don’t know. I do know that we are in the midst of a technological revolution where people are connecting like never before.  Our politics need a new identity along these lines. Virtual groups need to pull people back in. This is why I use this social networking tool NewGov. We need to find the sweet spot between political association and social networking. I believe that nominating candidates on-line is a way to pull people in again. Once nominated, then let them run in a partisan qualifying primary where the top-two advance. This is what France does if there is no majority and you never see an eighteen percent turnout.

Again, these are things to think about in context of California's  June 3 primaries poor performance turnout wise.
 
Political social networking offers promise of puling people in. Until it really catches on, shadow groups will dominate and people will stay away from elections that discourage grassroots participation.
 
Note:
My opinions on this site are my own. I am just a participant like anyone else. I have no personal interest in this site. Please consider joining so we can blaze a trail forward in the realm of digital democracy!