Deconstructing the May 18th primaries
So yesterday's primary election results in Arkansas and Pennsylvania were pretty interesting. In Arkansas, challenger Bill Halter forced Democratic senator Blanche Lincoln into a runoff election, as third candidate Morrison picked up enough votes to keep both Lincoln and Halter from reaching 50%.
In Pennsylvania, voters refused to accept long-time Republican, short time Democrat Arlen Specter's recent party switch as genuine, and have put the veteran legislator out to pasture.
Much is being made of these results. What does it all mean? Well first, I think they are very, very good results. Halter's strong showing in Arkansas, if nothing else, keeps pressure on Blanche Lincoln serve the people, rather than her corporate masters. That is, it provides her with great incentive to actually do her job.
What a concept.
Arlen Specter's loss shows that voters are looking beyond party labels for once, which is long, long overdue. So that's all good.
Now we can expect the pundits and bloggers to take their respective positions on whether this represents a true populist uprising, with voters rejecting corporatist candidates, or whether it's proof of the anti-incumbent mood many have suggested exists and that Republican candidates are no doubt praying really does.
To be honest, I'm not sure that's the whole story.
There's probably some truth in each of those positions. But I don't think last night's primary results actually give us good data about that.
The Arkansas race had three candidates in the mix, meaning it was unlikely that any candidate was going to get to 50% anyway. The third candidate in that race, Morrison, took 13% of the vote, leaving 87% for Halter and Lincoln to divide amongst themselves. Do the math, and to reach 50% among the electorate as a whole, Halter or Lincoln would have had to win by a 57/43 margin within those non-Morrison voters. A pretty tall order by any stretch.
No, the Arkansas race won't really tell us much about populist-vs-corporatist or challenger-vs-incumbent sentiments in the electorate until the runoff, when we can measure how those Morrison voters will break.
Side note: this is a great example of why simple "pick one" voting sucks compared to any of the "ranked-choice" voting methods such as Instant Runoff voting. If Arkansas allowed voters to rank the candidates, rather than just naming their favorite, we'd have this answer now and there would be no need for a runoff election. Just think, the money saved by not holding separate runoff elections could go towards improving Arkansas's schools.
I mean, I'm just saying…
The Pennsylvania race has its own pair of side-factors in play. First, Pennsylvania Democrats have had many past elections in which to get used to seeing Arlen Specter on the ballot with an (R) next to his name.
I don't think they ever really believed his party switch was a matter of heart, rather than a political hail-Mary play.
Given the choice between Arlen "Democrat by necessity" Specter, and Joe "Democrat at heart" Sestak, it was easier to vote against Specter even with his long record of incumbency.
Second, I think age played a factor. Not to mince words, but Arlen Specter is getting old. Joe Sestak is no fuzz-faced youth, but he is certainly a younger, more vital person. Look at the difference in pictures of the two men on their respective campaign websites. Couple that with the massive Democratic voter registration efforts from the 2008 Presidential election, and you get an electorate with a lot of new, young voters in the ranks.
They look at Specter and see an old guy who, both demographically and with his Republican record, represents why we're presently in the mess we're in. They look at Sestak and see someone much more like themselves: a younger guy with the strength and vigor to help get us out of the mess.
Seriously, who would you vote for?
I'm happy as heck to see Bill Halter's campaign continue. I think his chances look excellent in the runoff (If Morrison's voters were at all inclined to vote for Lincoln, why wouldn't they have done so yesterday?). I'm delighted that a great candidate like Joe Sestak will be going toe-to-toe with his Republican counterpart this fall.
But do these results mean anything for other races around the country? Probably not. Each one will have to be judged on its own merits.
In Pennsylvania, voters refused to accept long-time Republican, short time Democrat Arlen Specter's recent party switch as genuine, and have put the veteran legislator out to pasture.
Much is being made of these results. What does it all mean? Well first, I think they are very, very good results. Halter's strong showing in Arkansas, if nothing else, keeps pressure on Blanche Lincoln serve the people, rather than her corporate masters. That is, it provides her with great incentive to actually do her job.
What a concept.
Arlen Specter's loss shows that voters are looking beyond party labels for once, which is long, long overdue. So that's all good.
Now we can expect the pundits and bloggers to take their respective positions on whether this represents a true populist uprising, with voters rejecting corporatist candidates, or whether it's proof of the anti-incumbent mood many have suggested exists and that Republican candidates are no doubt praying really does.
To be honest, I'm not sure that's the whole story.
There's probably some truth in each of those positions. But I don't think last night's primary results actually give us good data about that.
The Arkansas race had three candidates in the mix, meaning it was unlikely that any candidate was going to get to 50% anyway. The third candidate in that race, Morrison, took 13% of the vote, leaving 87% for Halter and Lincoln to divide amongst themselves. Do the math, and to reach 50% among the electorate as a whole, Halter or Lincoln would have had to win by a 57/43 margin within those non-Morrison voters. A pretty tall order by any stretch.
No, the Arkansas race won't really tell us much about populist-vs-corporatist or challenger-vs-incumbent sentiments in the electorate until the runoff, when we can measure how those Morrison voters will break.
Side note: this is a great example of why simple "pick one" voting sucks compared to any of the "ranked-choice" voting methods such as Instant Runoff voting. If Arkansas allowed voters to rank the candidates, rather than just naming their favorite, we'd have this answer now and there would be no need for a runoff election. Just think, the money saved by not holding separate runoff elections could go towards improving Arkansas's schools.
I mean, I'm just saying…
The Pennsylvania race has its own pair of side-factors in play. First, Pennsylvania Democrats have had many past elections in which to get used to seeing Arlen Specter on the ballot with an (R) next to his name.
I don't think they ever really believed his party switch was a matter of heart, rather than a political hail-Mary play.
Given the choice between Arlen "Democrat by necessity" Specter, and Joe "Democrat at heart" Sestak, it was easier to vote against Specter even with his long record of incumbency.
Second, I think age played a factor. Not to mince words, but Arlen Specter is getting old. Joe Sestak is no fuzz-faced youth, but he is certainly a younger, more vital person. Look at the difference in pictures of the two men on their respective campaign websites. Couple that with the massive Democratic voter registration efforts from the 2008 Presidential election, and you get an electorate with a lot of new, young voters in the ranks.
They look at Specter and see an old guy who, both demographically and with his Republican record, represents why we're presently in the mess we're in. They look at Sestak and see someone much more like themselves: a younger guy with the strength and vigor to help get us out of the mess.
Seriously, who would you vote for?
I'm happy as heck to see Bill Halter's campaign continue. I think his chances look excellent in the runoff (If Morrison's voters were at all inclined to vote for Lincoln, why wouldn't they have done so yesterday?). I'm delighted that a great candidate like Joe Sestak will be going toe-to-toe with his Republican counterpart this fall.
But do these results mean anything for other races around the country? Probably not. Each one will have to be judged on its own merits.
# Posted by Jason Black : 12:15 PM
Comments:
IRV doesn't really save money if you take into account the increased costs for voter education that you have to do for each and every election, new voting systems to handle IRV (of which there are none that are federally certified), increased expense for election administration and printing costs.
The State of MD did two fiscal studies of three bills trying to get IRV in MD. They found that IRV would cost $310 to $350 per registered voter JUST to implement, and 50 cents per registered voter per election year for voter education. That's on top of the other election costs.
When we took those costs per registered voter and applied them to my state of NC, we found it would cost $20 million to implement and $4 million a year for voter education - that's every year. All that to save $3 million every 4 years by not having a runoff. The IRV math doesn't work when you look at the high cost, complexity for administration, and confusion to voters. And on top of it all - IRV doesn't ensure majority winners in a single election. It's called "majority failure" and is a well known problem with IRV.
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