The Boston Globe did this a few weeks ago. Here are some excerpts:
Law quirk requires a costly primary
A legal quirk in the way Boston conducts its elections will probably require a citywide preliminary vote in September, forcing the city to spend at least $500,000 to narrow a field of at-large City Council hopefuls by one, from nine candidates to eight.
Political observers point to four long-shot candidates, saying one of them should drop out to save the city the expense. But those candidates, who submitted the 500 signatures necessary to appear on the ballot, say they are exercising their democratic right to run for office and have no intention of dropping out by tomorrow’s 5 p.m. deadline.
…
Secretary of State William F. Galvin questioned the wisdom of holding a primary vote to reduce a field of nine to eight.
…
Conducting a citywide election costs $500,000 to $750,000, according to election officials. About 340,000 ballots would have to be printed, at about 20 cents each, and detail police officers and poll workers would have to staff all 254 precincts. “The law requires us to do it,” said Geraldine Cuddyer, Boston’s election commissioner. “So we’ll just have to do it.”
…
Matthew Geary, a 22-year-old undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, who has one cent in his campaign account, said he would bring a unique perspective to a council crowded with longtime incumbents.
The section about “one cent in his campaign account” was clearly editorializing by the author. Nothing in the law talks about how much money you have – the implication is that “if you have just one cent, you don’t matter”. I’m dumbfounded that the law dictating when a primary is to be held was described as a “legal quirk”. And candidates are already being pre-screened by the media as “long shots” — in other words, “don’t you dare vote for them”.
Boston actually wound up canceling the primary and simply adding the extra candidate to the final ballot. The end result is that the votes of the challengers will be diluted and split, and the incumbents gain an advantage.
The Springfield Republican ran a similar article, with the meme of “elections as an expense” being championed by former Springfield City Councilor and now State Representative Angelo Puppolo:
The city is scheduled to have a preliminary election on Sept. 18 to narrow the field of City Council candidates from 20 to 18, but a state legislator said yesterday that’s unnecessary.
State Rep. Angelo J. Puppolo Jr., D-Springfield, a former councilor, said the city could cancel the preliminary election by sending a home-rule petition to the state Legislature and governor.
The preliminary election would serve to shrink the candidate list by only two, and a cancellation would save $60,000 in election costs, he said.
…
“Boston did it so quickly. Why can’t we do it in the city of Springfield?” Puppolo said.
…
Nonetheless, Councilor James J. Ferrera III said he will propose that the council petition the state to cancel the preliminary election to save money.
So the powers have spoken. Primary elections are now “unnecessary expenses”. People are complaining if too many people run for office. The democratic process “costs too much money”. It’s all about the finances.
If we move to this view of an election, it is a short hop to canceling elections when incumbents run unopposed. Don’t even put them on the ballot, save some money on the ink, right?
