nonpartisan elections

What is a “multi-party primary”?

There is some controversy over what to call the various “top-X”/“jungle primary” electoral systems now in vogue. The National Conference of State Legislatures now offers the term “multi-party primary” with the following definition:

A small but growing number of states hold a single primary in which all candidates, regardless of party, are listed on a single ballot. States vary in the number of candidates who advance out of this primary to the general election…

Elections for Nebraska’s unicameral, nonpartisan legislature closely mirror this process except ballots do not identify the candidates’ party.

I prefer the term “nonpartisan two-round system” (NPTRS) for two reasons. First, I take my definition of “partisan election” from literature in which some formal process governs a candidate’s use of the party label on a ballot, i.e., there is an actual endorsement. Second, some of that literature is in comparative politics, and since the goal is to import a “comparative” electoral system, it may help to bring with it the terminology used to analyze the working of such systems.

Another way to make the second point is to note that these reforms at least pretend to favor multi-party politics (see the name given above to the first-round election). But there are no parties, formally speaking, and that may matter for their long-term operation.

If we need a term for only the first round, I prefer winnowing or preliminary election. This is the term used in some cities to describe an election whose purpose is to reduce the number of candidates proceeding to the next round (typically but not necessarily a general election).

Controversy about using the word “nonpartisan” boils down to the fact that party labels do appear on some states’ ballots (as described above). However, on closer inspection, these labels are just indications of party affiliation, and we all get to choose the one we want when we register to vote. It’s not a party endorsement arrived at either collectively, or via some collectively legitimated process written down in either public law or party bylaws.

Portion of an Alaskan sample ballot from a first-round election, held 20 August 2024.

I might be okay with “jungle primary” simply because many instantly know what it means. “Top X” or “top C” also works and may carry less baggage, although it is not widely used.

The election that killed interest in majoritarian ranked voting?

Tyler Cowan’s piece on RCV for Bloomberg is making the rounds this weekend. It elides some taxonomic differences, but I’ll assume most people mean the laissez-faire version now promoted for single-seat elections. The gist of Cowan’s piece is that candidates, in pursuit of voters’ lower rankings, will “moderate their positions and their behavior.”

Below are some excerpts from a 1922 article in the National Municipal Review (NMR). They illustrate a form of coordination failure about which I wrote earlier this week — voters not ranking choices because elites didn’t urge them to, leading to an unexpected winner without a final-round majority.

I just discovered the article, which appears to be a popular-consumption version of points made in the APSR (Maxey 1922). The APSR version describes “the Cleveland election” as one that “will likely go down in history as one of the most notable in American annals” — possibly because it coincided with adoption of a city charter based on single transferable vote, but also because the coordination failure below seems to have helped end advocacy of nonpartisan, single-seat reforms based on ordinal ballots. My guess is that the NMR published its version to signal to readers that the associated League’s priorities had changed.

I do not recommend structuring a paragraph as the one that follows, unless the goal is to hide something from all but attentive readers.

The Republican organization decided to back the incumbent, Mr. FitzGerald; the Democratic organization backed E. B. Haserodt; and Kohler with four others stood as independents. The Cleveland charter with nominations by petition and the preferential ballot was intended to favor the independent candidate, but no candidate without the support of one or the other of the party machines had ever been elected. With the field divided among seven candidates, it looked like a sure thing for one organization or the other. Two things, however, were overlooked in this reckoning: (1) that the people of Cleveland were disgusted with machine politics, and (2) the unique campaign conducted by Mr. Kohler. Mr. Kohler absolutely refused throughout the campaign to make a speech or public address; he announced no program or platform; he did not deny past misconduct or seek to extenuate it; he simply insisted that his record for efficiency and integrity was above reproach, adorned himself with his Rooseveltian decoration, and promised to give Cleveland “the best administration it has ever had.” To get into contact with the voters he used a method that was completely baffling to the opposition. Having developed unusual powers as a pedestrian during the years that he served on the police force as a patrolman, Kohler undertook to make a house-to-house canvass of the city. Exactly how many homes he visited in his solicitation of votes is known only to Kohler himself, but it is certain that he managed to get over practically all of the ground that he deemed important. This type of campaign was especially disconcerting to the other candidates because they had no means of measuring its success, and the inroads he was making upon their strength were not apparent until straw votes near the end of the campaign showed unmistakably that it was a case of Kohler against the field. The election returns showed Kohler leading from the start, and although he did not secure the majority of first choice votes, nor the majority of first and second choice votes necessary to election under the “Mary Ann” ballot, neither did any other candidate. Then under the charter it was necessary to count all choices, and Kohler was found to have a clear plurality of all-choice votes, and was therefore elected.

It should be noted that the electoral system above appears to be based on Bucklin allocation (adding votes), not Hare (transferring them).

Please cite this chapter if you find the above useful in your own research.

FPTP is not an “antiquated voting system”

When seeking to persuade people to go along with an electoral reform, it is common to suggest that first-past-the-post is old. Common variations on this theme include “antiquated voting system” and “18th-century voting technology.” This trope is anachronistic.

Single-seat districts with plurality allocation and a single round in which each party nominates one candidate (i.e., FPTP) is relatively new. So is proportional representation (PR) based on party lists.

What was old in the countries these replaced is some combination of the following: multi-seat districts (including in Britain), two-round runoff elections, and virtually no party control of nominations. Some cases even had voice voting, as I learned this week. The single transferable vote (STV), which we hear is new technology, reflects the old order.

Scholars have been converging on a theory of electoral reform that runs roughly as follows: nomination control is the way to contain ‘populism,’ and this can be mixed with PR, plurality, or runoff.

This point starts to emerge from a 2010 article in Comparative Political Studies by Amel Ahmed, later expanded into a book. The point is that both PR and “single-member plurality (SMP)” — note the terminological difference from FPTP — were responses to a perceived threat of mass (socialist) mobilization in the late 19th century. Belgium turned to PR, and the United Kingdom went with SMP. Later work extends this explanation to other continental democracies. It also starts to emphasize the role of list PR in boosting control of nominations, had any existed at all. As for Britain, Ahmed documents a range of other practices (like gerrymandering) that came with SMP, all meant to contain what would become the Labour Party. Later work suggests that incumbents did not need control of nominations because it already had existed since the 1830s.

A 2×2 table may help with the jargon I am starting to introduce. It is oversimplified but helps to make my point.

Seat allocation → Nomination control ↓	Proportional	Not proportional
Low	STV	SMP*
High	List PR	FPTP

*I am using “SMP” to keep things simple. It may make sense to use “SSD” (single-seat district) instead.

How might we think about the United States? Congress first mandated single-seat districts in 1842. That law is now seen as a way to prevent Jacksonian Democrats from maximizing seat share by switching to the ‘general ticket’ (multi-seat districts) in states under their control. Note that this did not enhance control of nominations. That possibility would not exist until introduction of the secret ballot. Thus it was not FPTP, and the major parties have remained ‘big tent’ (i.e., hospitable to ‘populism’).

STV enters the conversation in the 1850s as a way to “protect minorities” in multi-seat districts, along with cumulative voting and other non-list approaches to holding down majority seat share. Its popularity is mostly limited to the United Kingdom and its colonies. I have toyed with the idea that this popularity was due to a pre-existing tradition of party government, with associated levers of nomination control. STV might have ‘protected minorities’ without resort to SMP, at the same time rolling back control of nominations. That never happened.

FPTP and list PR are thus ‘new technology,’ whereas STV and nonpartisan runoffs are old.

Since this post is getting long, I will set aside Australia, except to note three things about STV: (1) its single-seat cousin (‘RCV’) came with compulsory ranking, (2) continued mass mobilization led to the addition of compulsory voting, and (3) STV came much later to the Senate for reasons other than a need to contain ‘populism.’