From 2010-2020, there were 1,507 seats that were on the ballot. Let’s look at all of the parties that were regarded as official by the Commonwealth – they had lines on the ballot and the state conducted primaries.
Republicans Of the 1,507 seats:
No candidate filed: 917 (60.8%)
Uncontested (one candidate): 502 (33.3%)
Two candidates: 72 (4.8%)
Three or more candidates: 15 (1.0%) Seven of these races were for U.S. Senate or U.S. Representative.
In the primaries with three or more candidates, five candidates cleared 50% in the primary, and one state representative candidate went on to being elected.
Of the ten candidates that won their primary with less than 50% of the vote, only two state representative candidates were elected in November.
Libertarians were an official party in 2010, 2018, and 2020. They had the opportunity to run candidates for 760 seats during those three years. In 2018, they had two candidates file for a place on the primary ballot: State Auditor and Governors’ Council in the 5th District.
Green-Rainbows were an official party in 2012, 2016, and 2020. They had the opportunity to run candidates for 730 seats during those three years. They had five candidates for state representative file for a place on the primary ballot: 4th Berkshire (2012), 5th Hampden (2012), 14th Middlesex (2016), 12th Worcester (2016 and 2020).
The United Independent party gained a place on the 2016 ballot, after Evan Falchuk created the party for his 2014 run for governor. They had 234 opportunities to field candidates in 2016 and 0 candidates only one candidate filed for one of their ballot slots. (Correction, October 4.)
Democrats Of the 1,507 seats:
No candidate filed: 140 (9.3%)
Uncontested (one candidate): 1,040 (69.0%)
Two candidates: 208 (13.8%)
Three or more candidates: 119 (7.9%) In the primaries with three or more candidates, 45 candidates cleared 50% in the primary. Of the 74 primary winners with less than 50% of the vote:
- 7 were in 2020; outcome to be decided in November, but 5 are running unopposed in the general election.
- 36 won because they were uncontested in the general election.
- 20 won with 55 percent or more in the general election
- 5 won with less than 50% of the vote in the general election
The conclusion is that 61 of the 74 Democratic primary winners with less than 50% of the vote advanced to uncontested or noncompetitive primaries. If you exclude the Auchincloss primary, only 12 of the plurality vote winners moved on to competitive general elections in November.
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What does this all mean?
When I first moved to Massachusetts, unenrolled voters (those not enrolled in a political party) were able to go to the polls and enroll in a party on election day and vote in the primary. There was a bit of fiction attached to this, as voters could drop their ballot in the machine and immediately go to a table and unenroll from the party. Voters became Democrats or Republicans for a few short minutes, just long enough to cast a ballot.
The law was changed in the 1990s, and unenrolled voters can now simply request a ballot in the party of their choice. As a result, unenrolled voters grew to a majority in 2008. Currently, 57.0% of Massachusetts voters are unenrolled, 32.1% are enrolled as Democrats, 9.9% are enrolled as Republicans, 0.4% are enrolled as Libertarians, and 0.08% are enrolled as members of the Green-Rainbow party.
Steve Koczela and Hannah Chanatry wrote of the impact of the unenrolled voters in a 2017 article in Commonwealth Magazine.
In the 2016 presidential election, 66 percent of voters in the Massachusetts Republican primary were unenrolled, not an unusual total in the few recent primaries the party has managed to muster. On the Democratic side, registered partisans made up a bare, 57 percent majority. If registration trends continue as they have been, the day may not be far off when the majority of voters in both primaries will be unenrolled. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/its-not-my-party-but-ill-vote-if-i-want-to/
This makes sense, particularly for Republican-leaning voters. If the Democratic primary is tantamount to winning the election, voters who are enrolled as Republicans are locked out of the Democratic primary and the ability to choose their elected representatives. Unenrolled status makes the voter a free agent in the primary.
Given the fluidity of voters, it makes no sense to give one line on the ballot to each party.
In practical terms, the entry of Republican-leaning unenrolled voters into the Democratic primary has resulted in electing a state legislature filled with moderate to conservative Democrats. Where Republican candidates are unopposed in their primaries, the only primary game in town for Republican leaning unenrolled voters is to move into the Democratic primary and influence that outcome. An even bigger problem is when unenrolled Republican leaning undecided voters have uncontested candidates on the primary ballot, and with no reason to pull a GOP ballot with no choices, these conservative voters can pull a Democratic ballot, defeat the more progressive candidate in the Democratic primary, and return to the GOP fold in November.
Ranked choice won’t fix this problem; however a blanket primary where everyone gets the same ballot, with candidates from all parties, would draw the Republican leaning undecided voter to the Republican on the blanket primary ballot. In doing so, the top two would result in draining primary support from the more conservative Democrat, enabling a more progressive Democrat to have a greater chance of advancing to the November ballot. From 2010-2018, in 113 (8.9%) out of 1270 races, the Democratic primary eliminated all competition, placing an uncontested Democrat on the ballot.
When Republican-leaning unenrolled voters have a choice between a Republican primary ballot with no candidates, their only ability to vote in the primary is with a Democratic ballot. In this instance, the conservatives in the Democratic primary are able to eliminate a more progressive Democrat, resulting in an uncontested election.
Since 2010, five parties had 1,717 unoccupied places on the ballot since 2010., and five candidates on the ballot. Plurality voting isn’t preventing them from fielding candidates; in fact, Ranked Choice will make it more difficult for them to win. With Ranked Choice, they need to gain an absolute majority, rather than squeaking into office with a small plurality of a split vote.
The bottom line: Over the past decade 70.1% of the 1,507 seats up for election lacked either a Democrat or a Republican on the ballot. 89 out of 3,014 Republican and Democratic primaries would have triggered a Ranked Choice count, and 61 went on to uncontested or marginally contested races in November.
We don’t have a proposal to address the real problem, uncontested elections. We have a Ranked Choice ballot question because a Texas Enron hedge fund billionaire dropped $3 million into a campaign that spent $274,356 to collect the signatures required to get on the ballot. Attaching Ranked Choice to a September primary has the potential for creating chaos.
Question 2? No, thank you. I don’t take antihistamines for a sprained ankle, and I won’t vote for Ranked Choice voting to fix our broken system of uncontested elections. I’ll wait to support a solution that will actually fix the problems that plague our elections.
The longest straw-man attack I have ever seen, since not even the Q2 campaign (which has made some extrabvigatn claims) has said it will cure Pablo’s fixation du jour.
Why not just say that if you vote for Q2, you will someday die? At least that would be true.
Complete red herring. This is for those races that ARE contested, though it may make more candidates feel like their only role is to spoil.
Speaker DeLeo and his leadership team thank you for your distraction.
This is factually inaccurate:
“They had 234 opportunities to field candidates in 2016 and 0 candidates filed for their ballot slots“.
Two UIP candidates appeared on the 2016 ballot. Dan Fishman won the UIP nomination in a 2016 state rep race and became its nominee against incumbent Democrat Jerald Parisella, winning 25% of the vote. Another disgraced former legislator also appeared as a UIP candidate on the general after winning a write in election. A third candidate failed to win her write in nomination, despite an enormous amount of effort from her team and yours truly.
I mention this to point out the incredibly difficult time alternatives to the two parties have at gaining traction under first past the post. Despite an initial strategy of targeting 1 v 1 races and incumbent legislators to defect, recruitment was an uphill battle. We rejected many fringe candidates who wanted to run. We rejected the possibility of doing something like putting Bloomberg, Evan McMullen, or Bernie Sanders on our presidential ballot line which might have allowed us to cross the 5% statewide threshold and survive another cycle. Despite well organized and funded overtures from their supporters. We did not want to do anything that might remotely help Donald Trump or tarnish the UIP brand by association.
That unsuccessful write in race is the one I was most involved in directly. It became very difficult to instruct voters enrolled in the party to unenroll and then to reenroll after the presidential primary. This crippled our ability to get the 1% enrollment figure we needed to stay a party. It also was difficult to convince unenrolled voters in that district that they had to request a UIP ballot and write in a particular persons name. We got assurances from the clerk that they would look at each ballot by hand if the write in bubbles exceeded the 150 required, but only 128 were valid in the end. It was an exceedingly difficult race for all involved. Luckily the candidate is now a Cohasset selectwoman and has stayed involved in politics by returning to the Democratic Party. Even at the most local level, a third party affiliation is a political death sentence in a first past the post system. It’s no wonder the only Green Party elected officials have been elected in more proportional vote systems.
It was difficult to attract financing for the party or its candidates. John Henry tweeted out that year that he wanted a centrist third party, but rejected all overtures to help the only one then on the ballot in his state. Despite repeated attempts to coordinate with the Centrist Project and their well heeled funders, they had no interest in state legislatures.
I spoke to several state legislators in both parties to try and convince them to switch to form a reformers block in the House of Representatives. From a publicly anti DeLeo Democrat: “If I join your party, DeLeo will just run another Democrat against me and most voters in a presidential year have no idea who I am, and they’ll vote straight D and I’ll be out of a job.” We heard similar things from the Republicans we unsuccessfully tried to target in the wake of Trumps nomination. Even from former office holders or former statewide candidates.
The short version of this story is ranked choice voting by eliminating the spoiler effect gives third parties a real shot at competing in multi candidate elections and removes the fringe and spoiler stigma that keeps them from being successful. You want a viable Progressive Party or Moderate Party or Green Party, this is the best way to do it.
It also removes the spoiler effect within crowded primaries that lead to many CD4 candidates to drop out or blame each other about the result rather than the voting system which favors minority rule and minority winners in plurality voting.
So focus on the facts at hand:
1) RCV solves plurality winners in crowded primaries not uncontested elections.
Quit lying about this.
2) hundreds of thousands of ordinary voters across the spectrum and hundreds of volunteers giving thousands of hours got Q2 on the ballot
Quit lying about this
3) Yes on 2 has received no money from SuperPacs and over 80% of its funding comes from small donations. This is in stark comparison to the Koch funded No on 2 campaign led by the right wing Mass Fiscal Alliance in concert with ALEC and Americans for Prosperity.
Quit lying about this.
4) Jungle primaries produce less competitive elections than Ranked Choice Voting
Quit Lying About this
5) No on 2 keeps first past the post in place and does NOT lead to a jungle primary system reform
Quit Lying About This
You are right, I missed the Fishman race. I was doing a download from the state website, made more difficult with the inclusion of the United Independent Primaries and United Independent Party Primaries in the menu. Mr. Fishman received 6 votes in the 2016 primary, earning a spot on the November ballot.
My analysis was based on candidates filed for the party primary. Write-in candidates aren’t captured by this filter. John P. Fresolo won 100 votes in the 2016 primary for the 16th Worcester district with 100 votes. Two other candidates failed to meet the threshold to qualify for the November ballot.
Let’s look at the numbered list of “lies.”
And that’s the truth.
Sounds like the CD4 difference is whether the real contest is in September or November, but involving basically the same cast of characters. I believe the major parties should be on the November ballot, and RCV would make me more comfortable with minor parties being there too. Why does the funding source matter so much to you on this? People still have to sign papers and vote for this thing. What nefarious motives do you think Mr. Arnold has?
The Republicans have devolved into a minor party. They are incapable of mounting a credible campaign. The foundation of BMG is reality based commentary. The reality is that Republicans, and minor parties, are unable to mount a credible challenge in most Massachusetts districts. If you want competitive elections, RCV won’t make it happen. A top two primary will.
Why do I care about the funding? I think most progressives are opposed to governance by billionaire, and having a Texas Enron hedge fund billionaire use $3 million to set our political agenda is a huge problem. Are you okay with that?
Even though this question is directed at Christopher, I want to take a swing at it anyway.
In my opinion, so long as wealthy right-wing extremists like the Koch brothers, the Scaifs, the Coors, and all the others are able to contribute to their candidate of choice for whatever reasons they choose, then I am very reluctant criticize candidates or groups that I otherwise support because they choose to accept money from deep-pocketed donors.
I of course prefer transparency — that doesn’t seem to be an issue here since the fact that we’re discussing this means that Mr. Arnold’s contribution(s) are well-documented.
I think that Richard Mellon Scaife wore a black hat. I think that George Soros wears a white hat. I think Michael Bloomberg is somewhere in the middle.
I don’t like charter schools and I generally don’t like donors and officials who do like them.
I note that we continue to focus on Q2, and yet I hear more concerns raised about funding for Q1.
Whatever concerns I have about Q2 are dominated by whether and how it works. I’d like us to focus rather more on those, and rather less on Mr. Arnold.
Most true minor parties would love to snag a Governorship!
Why is Speaker DeLeo your go-to bogeyman on this question? If he continues to go unchallenged RCV is moot in his race. My guess is his constituents like that their Rep. is Speaker with all that extra power, but that is another problem that nobody is pretending RCV will solve.
If the problem with Massachusetts elections is the plethora of uncontested elections, and RCV does nothing to solve the problems, then we need to wonder why the reform presented to voters is RCV and not another paradigm that will make our House of Representatives more representative.
Because that is the reform that got the signatures this time. I really don’t understand why you think its mutually exclusive to other reforms. I don’t know that jungle top-two primaries would increase competition either. Maybe people are content. Ballot access just isn’t that difficult, at least for the 4 recognized parties in a non-pandemic year. Any campaign finance reforms you may suggest are in a completely different category than procedural reforms like RCV.
Of course a top two primary would increase competition. There were 28 Democratic primaries in 2020 that eliminated all competition in the November election.
I would phrase the “got signatures” line differently. $4,932,974 of $5,749,545 (85.8%) of Ranked Choice Voting 2020 Committee contributions come from out-of-state. $3,038,850 of that money (54.9% of the total) came from one Texas Enron hedge fund billionaire who has dumped six figures into Massachusetts for Charlie Baker’s 2018 campaign and his 2016 charter school ballot question. The campaign spent $274,356 to collect the signatures required to get on the ballot.
I agree with Tom that the financing is a moot point, as the Yes on 2 side is transparent in its funding while No in 2 has found creative ways to dodge OCPF as I reported on another thread. It’s a wash. I don’t have to like that Mr. Arnold is allowed to donate that much to campaigns to recognize that ranked choice voting was a grassroots signature gathering effort fueled by volunteers. I was there when this campaign started and was a few people getting together in a Somerville apartment. The fact that it’s on the ballot, endorsed by former Republican and Democratic governors, endorsed by local progressives like Sen. Warren and Attorney General Healey, and endorsed by all the major CD4 candidates affected by the deficiency in the current system is proof that it’s got widespread appeal.
So the money is immaterial to the issues at hand.
As for the competitiveness, for the last time, RCV is not designed to solve that problem. Although RCV increases multiparty competition overtime, it has never been suggested that its the sole or top reason to support this reform. The plethora of plurality primaries and general elections for high office decided by minority vote share winners is the single top reason to vote for RCV. Followed by finally eliminating the spoiler effect and giving third parties an equal shot without risking electing a minority backed candidate like Donald Trump or Paul LePage. That’s it. Those are the top two reasons to vote for it.
Top two isn’t in the ballot Pablo and it’s not supported by as many voters as RCV which is. I have yet to see you mount a defense of plurality voting or first past the post, which is the status quo a No vote would leave us with.
I am happy to debate top two on a separate thread, invoking it to attack RCV is intellectually dishonest since you have yet to argue how first past the post is a more fair, more just, or more tpedentstive system.
Anyone who thinks financing this question is a moot point, or unimportant, should never come back to this forum to complain about Citizens’ United and billionaire bucks in campaigns.
Spare me the sanctimony. You’ve defended similar donors in the past when they’ve helped your candidates and causes. $3.5 million in perfectly legal disclosed money is chump change compared to the dark money funding No on 2. Or the billion dollars Biden just raises or the half a billion to dismantle McConnells majority. Changing the system makes it more likely fundraising is less needed in the future.
I for one see a distinction between getting a question on the ballot where we ultimately decide for ourselves and the influence big money can have on public officials.
Signatures don’t cost anything and those who sign the papers usually neither know nor care whether the person collecting is paid or volunteer. The people have just as much right to decide if they like the proposal whether the campaign is rolling in cash or on a shoestring budget. This is not a plutocracy or oligarchy.
Here’s my breakdown of the two proposals: Both ameliorate spoilers and therefore may make people more comfortable running as a political consideration. Neither lowers any barriers we may see in terms of ballot access. I prefer RCV because it can be done in a single election and it still allows all parties to be represented on the final ballot.
I have not heard an affirmative and meritorious case from you on the drawbacks of RCV (beyond maybe the count takes longer than you like), but my one actual concern about top two is that precisely because there tend to be a lot more Dems than Republicans you could get the following 1st round result:
In this scenario 50% want a Democrat, but under top-2 the Republicans with only a combined 45% advance. Under RCV in a jungle there is a good chance a Dem will ultimately win. The Green would still have a chance to make his case to the entire electorate and may do better than 5% since there is still a chance to vote for the Dem as a likely second choice.
Isn’t this sort of what is happening in one of the Georgia senate races?
Yes and once again a Lieberman might cost the Democrats a Senate sear, in this case, the right to even compete one v one against the Republican. A feature, not a bug, of top two primaries. To be fair to Lieberman, ranked choice would allow him to stay in without spoiling Warnock. Top two primaries take all the problems with first past the post and amplify them. Plurality winners, lack of intra or inter party competition, and forcing voters to tactically vote instead of voting for their first choice.
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/10/02/lieberman-democrats-key-senate-races-424595
Ranked choice voting solves that problem and the one Christopher mentions. Top two was a huge issue in California, lots of fundraising wasted on intraparty fights that dwarf the Markey/Kennedy race Pablo once decried. Also it leads to more conservative Democrats getting elected since the progressives can’t win a primary outright and the Republicans vote for the more conservative Democrat in the general. It’s why we still have Feinstein in the Senate.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-on-politics-column-20171027-story.html?_amp=true
Massachusetts is not Georgia.
Massachusetts is not Maine.
Massachusetts is not Texas.
Massachusetts doesn’t have a functioning Republican party.
Except the top two political offices are held by Republicans and they ARE hands down the second party in the state in terms of registration, primary turnout, and office holding. Greens and Libertarians are recognized parties, but don’t come anywhere close. Not sure why it matters how closely we match other states. Why are you on such a crusade against this? Did you lose an RCV race once?
Then my rejoinder is a top two primary is not on the ballot in Massachusetts and not germane to this argument.
If “signatures don’t cost anything,” why did the RCV folks need to pay $274,356 to collect signatures?
Thanks for the scenario. We can all make up scenarios to support their arguments, and set vote totals to support that argument. Instead, let’s look at MA-04.
Jake Auchincloss (D) 35,361
Jesse Mermell (D) 33,216
Becky Grossman (D) 28,578
Julie Hall (R) 19,394
Natalia Linos (D) 18,364
Ihssane Leckey (D) 17,539
Alan Khazei (D) 14,440
Dave Rosa (R) 11,296
Christopher Zannetos (D) 5,135
Dave Cavell (D) 2,498
Benjamin Sigel (D) 2,465
A top two primary could have Auchincloss and Mermell winning a place on the November ballot. Christopher is building a scenario where the Republicans have 45% of the vote, and that math undermines his hypothetical perfect storm.
Leaving the Republican candidate out in the cold. You’re right that my scenario doesn’t apply to CD4, but we need the best system to accommodate multiple potential outcomes. I still haven’t seen why RCV is bad.
Maybe the organizers didn’t “need” to pay signature gatherers, but so what if they did? It’s extra pocket money for a few college kids.
I’m saying 3,5 million is chump change for a statewide race and not determinative for why it got on the ballot. The assertion that one donor “bought” this ballot question and “forced” it on the ballot is patently false and insulting to the many hardworking volunteers who got the signatures in a middle of a pandemic. Full stop.
I have yet to see Pablo offer a defense of first past the post, which is the system is No vote implements and not a top two primary which is not on the ballot in Massachusetts.
Chump change? I don’t have that kind of chump change lying around the house.
Why shouldn’t we leave a non-competitive candidate out in the cold? If you are in favor of voter choice, the two best candidates should move forward to the general election.
55% of the voters voted for neither of those two candidates, ranked choice would more fairly determine whom the majority of voters prefer in a multi candidate field. .
Attach RCV to a top two primary in May, and I am all in. Attaching RCV to the current system is a potential disaster, and doesn’t fix the underlying problem of the plethora of uncontested elections.
One of the things I hate about the RCV campaign is they promise more choice, and all sort of good things that will happen in Massachusetts politics.
We don’t need more fringe candidates like Marianne Williamson and Jill Stein. We need more competitive candidate on the November ballot.
If you vote down No on 2, there will be no change at all and those fringe candidates can still spoil the election or heaven forbid, win a plurality in a primary and win office in the general. It’s happened before locally, in other states, and nationally.
Switching to RCV now allows us to make additional changes down the road. I like you’re idea of a non-partisan RCV primary in May, we can’t have that idea or your other reforms without passing this one. You’re making the perfect the enemy of the good.
I’ll add if you’re fine with RCV for a hypothetical primary in May two things are true:
A) your claims RCV can’t be counted properly ring hallow
B) You are conceding RCV is the fairest way to determine who the top two finishers are
So move your Non partisan May RCV primary to November and you have the reform that’s before it. Pass it, and you’ll get both ranked choice primaries and ranked choice general elections which you seem to concede you desire.
You’re choice now is between no ranked choice voting and first past the post. Either way the primary is in September until the legislature moves it. So we might as well have ranked choice ones.
It makes me smile that (2) the ballot question is a binary choice, while (2) the problem that RCV resolves is how to organize a single ballot for multiple candidates into a series of binary choices (the “instant runoff”).
Binary means the winner by definition has a majority, not just a plurality, which could be an undemocratic outcome. Pablo could have, with effort, put a different voting-reform measure on the ballot, but that would be a separate binary choice, not a 3-way choice.
(If both passed, the one that got the most votes would prevail.)
I’ll also add the board is a cast cross section of people in the Massachusetts political and non profit space.
Danielle Allen, Cheryl Crawford, Gladys Vega, and Avi Green to name a few are not the kind of activists bought off by “out of state millionaires”. We have a Harvard prof, the head fighter of voting rights and voter education in the state, a tireless advocate for Latinos in Chelsea, and one of the founders of common cause.
Not to mention RepresentUS, Gov. Patrick, Gov. Weld, Senator Warren, mango progressive legislators, former candidates from the CD4 and CD3 primaries, and a host of other major civic and non profit leaders.
https://www.yeson2rcv.com/who-we-are/