[EL] Dems have no candidate in Cal US House district, yet Dem is largest party

[Dan Meek]

Regarding Larry Levine's comment:  "Imagine the news stories if some 
party boss tried to keep candidates out of the race."

That has already happened in Washington State and has been publicly 
reported.  See, for example, 
http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/may/11/republican-dean-drops-out-of-18th-district-race, 
which notes:

    Republican educator Bob Dean withdrew from the 18th District
    legislative race Monday.

    "I am simply acknowledging the political realities at this time and
    want to ensure that we retain the Republican seat in the 18th
    District," he said.

    Dean is the second Republican candidate to withdraw from the crowded
    field. Cowlitz County Planning Commission member Shannon Barnett
    dropped out last week, citing personal reasons.

    The Clark County GOP has signaled that it hopes to winnow the field
    for the top two primary to avoid splitting the Republican vote too
    many ways in the Aug. 17 election.

Here is another press report that even describes the meeting of party 
leaders: 
http://tdn.com/news/state-and-regional/article_d1ae0de6-591f-11df-a5fd-001cc4c03286.html?mode=story

The Clark County GOP was successful in persuading some Republican 
candidates to withdraw from the primary race for the Washington House 
18th District.  I have heard no denunciation of this practice from any 
news outlet.

Dan Meek
dan at meek.net
	  10949 S.W. 4th Ave
   Portland, OR 97219 	  503-293-9021
   866-926-9646 fax




On 6/7/2012 12:53 PM, Rob Richie wrote:

I just was looking at another feature of how voters handled "Top Two."

In the US Senate race, the percentage of ballots in the Senate race 
invalidated due to overvotes was 1.03% so far -- with the higher rate 
among absentee voters suggesting that the rate will increase as more 
votes are tallied.

The SF mayoral race with 15 candidates and ranked choice voting had 
overvotes of 0.4%, less than half that error. Oakland's mayoral election 
rate of error was even lower. But as usual, media attention to such 
things is only on the alleged complexity for voters of RCV, not the real 
world fact that they made far more errors in the "simple" top two system.

It will be interesting to see how error rates might have affected some 
of the closer races.

Rob

###################

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Bruce Cain <be.cain48 at gmail.com 
<mailto:be.cain48 at gmail.com>> wrote:

    Richard
    If and when the same thing happens at the statewide level, the top
    two will immeditately lose favor.  But if that does not happen, we
    have to wait for the myth of the polarization miracle cure to die
    its slow, inevitable death.
    Bruce Cain
    On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Richard Winger
    <richardwinger at yahoo.com <mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com>> wrote:

        http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/06/07/democrats-are-largest-party-in-californias-31st-u-s-house-district-but-top-two-open-primary-leaves-party-with-no-candidate-in-november/
        Rob Richie also posted about this race on this list yesterday. 
        I was expecting some discussion, but so far I haven't seen any.

        Richard Winger
        415-922-9779 <tel:415-922-9779>
        PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147


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