The Primaries should all be held on the same day.

[hippywife]

Agree or Disagree? What are the upsides and downsides to this proposal.

I think it would stop the horse race that seems to be going on and people would vote their consciences rather than who seems to be ahead so far.

(Edited for typo.)

[Ninga]

1. All of the big fat old white men can not comprehend

such a thoughtful and insightful suggestion. Don't forget, they are the ones who run everything.

I think it's a great idea.

Oh, my gosh, I just had another thought. Same day primaries might even the playing field!!!

Forget, never will happen.

[tedoll78]

2. Agree.

Unfortunately, I put this into the same category as making Election Day a national holiday.. it probably won't happen anytime soon.. :(

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. You'd have to have one hell of a warchest to manage that feat

one small step at a time seems best.

[hippywife]

4. How so?

As far as I can see, the campaigning would still go on as it now does it would all just end on the same day. I'm not really sure how the schedule evolved as it did (someone inform me if you do know) but it seems that it may have evolved to give the candidates time to make their cases to the country in an age where mass communication and mass transit weren't what they are now and it was most necessary to travel as far and wide as possible.

If that is the case, since those obstables have all but been removed, what would be the point in keeping the primary schedule staggered the way it is?

[buckeye1]

6. Ageed.

Tinkering with process will not turn the losers into winners.

[lupita]

5. The primaries are giving us a lot of free media attention

That isn't helping Bush at all

[bhunt70]

7. disagree- all smaller states vote on same day. Major states a week later.

[hippywife]

10. And what set of arbitrary standards

would be used to divide them that way?

[mohc]

8. Disagree

Among the downsides:
It would pretty much eliminate the chances of a truly insurgent candidate. One would have to either raise an enormous amount of money to flood the markets with ads or already have a high name recognition. Especially in the case of this year, it would reduce the amount of attention given to the process. We could not simply tell the media we are having a single primary day with a 4 month season leading up to it and expect them to cover it. They would wait until the week before to cover the race, and basically that week would decide who wins. All the time up until then would simply be setting up the starting positions in the race. Although IA and NH might not be the best gauges to use, they do allow for "retail" politics, and I do believe it is good that candidates have to meet the people up close at some point in the election.

The main benefit that a national primary would have is that it reduces regional biases and the momentum built upon them. Instead of making all the primaries on the same day, we should keep the basic structure of the current system but address those two issues. Momentum is a problem because the elections are so close together, and regional bias is a problem because the dates of the primaries are arbitrary. What I believe we should do is spread the primaries out by having only one date a month, say the second Tuesday of the month from January until June (6 dates). And to eliminate regional bias, states should be put into 6 groups of 8 or 9 states each that balance things out, and they can be rotated around from year to year. If IA and NH throw a hissy fit, we could put them alone in Jan and just rotate the 5 other groups.

[For PaisAn]

9. Agree

this would be the only fair way to hold Primaries. I am sure we could find a way to make this feasible.

[AP]

11. Disagree. Richest guy would alwasy win. You need to let people

roll out their messages in a way that isn't too expensive. How we do it is good enough. All on the same day would be terrible.

[kiahzero]

12. Better, more feasible idea

Let people use a better voting system in the primaries. Condorcet lets people vote their conscience and fully express their sentiments for the candidates.

[mohc]

13. That would not work well in a primary

While I supported you in another thread on this topic, neither Condorcet or even IRV is designed well for a primary. We allocate delegates based on the percentage of votes a candidate received, subject to a minimum threshold. Condorcet and IRV can easily be used to decide a winner, but not to assign a percentage. I do not believe we want to use a winner-take-all system at the primary level, nor would we want to get rid of the delegate system and just have voters in all states collectively decide a winner. We have to use a system which assigns a percentage, and our current system does that. Keep in mind, the primary system is NOT FPTP, it is only presented that way by the media. Basically, its APTP (All) with the post being 15%. IRV is somewhat similar to how caucuses worked in Iowa, and that would probably work out well, where IRV only is applied when a candidate fails to get past the post it reassigns that support. But for candidates that get over 15% but not a majority, we should not reassign their support.

[kiahzero]

14. You could rework the way delegates are apportioned

While you do have an excellent point, and one I hadn't considered, it is resolvable. You could base it on beatpath strength... in fact, if I get some time, I may work out an algorithm for doing just that.

I refuse to support IRV in any context, because it is drastically worse than even FPTP voting.

[jansu]

15. Yes, or Don't report the results until all Primaries are finished!

Would be hard, you would have to pass laws making it illegal for anyone to report any exit polls etc. The punishment would have to be horrendous, to stop the media. That would be fun in and of itself! But, this would take the "front runner Momentum" power out of the mix. And, it would not matter if your state voted early or later.

I would support either or both!

[morgan2]

16. how about doing them all over the period of a month or so

but not counting the votes until each state has voted?

[Ilsa]

17. I'm tired of not having a say in the primaries

except through donations and volunteer work. I wish there was some way to level the financial playing field so everyone who is running gets a chance to have their message heard. Then I'd like to see primaries lumped together, more or less.

[tridim]

18. How about 10 random primaries a week over a 5 week period

And make each set of random choices only a week before each primary. The primary system is obviously screwed up as is, but it's a difficult problem to solve. There's nothing special about Iowa and NH, but they always get the first shot. It's not fair at all IMO. At least we're thinking about it. The politicians apparently couldn't care less.

[Old and In the Way]

19. That would be better. But having all the primaries on the same day

would assure that the monied interests have the advantage.

Personally, I think it is unfair to give two small rural states the initial caucus exposure at the same time. At least one large population state should be in the initial primary/caucus vote. Their issues may be substantially different from the rural state electorate.

There should be some kind of rotation on the states from election year to election year, too.