Will lawmakers reconsider the primary date?

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Vermont voters appear to have dealt easily, even enthusiastically, with a ‘summer primary,’ the result of moving the Sept. 14 date up to Aug. 24. Reversing a ten-year trend of low and lower voter participation, nearly one-quarter of the eligible voters in Vermont turned out. In contrast, the turnout was 9.3% in 2006, the last mid-term primary election. (Nationwide, the average percentage of eligible citizens voting in Democratic primaries was the lowest ever, while the GOP enjoyed the highest turnout since 1970.)

Four other states moved to the Aug. 24 date from September this year in a response to the federal requirement, set last October, for a 45-day window between certification of state primary votes and the general election to ensure that overseas military personnel would be able to get their votes back to their various town halls. In Vermont, this is of special concern since the state currently has the largest contingent of soldiers abroad since World War II.

But the Democratic primary, with five candidates for governor, ended in a recount that officials said could have taken until Sept. 20 to complete. So, is the primary still too near the cutoff date? Is another change in order?

If so, could the nomination of party candidates be over and done with much earlier and costs, time and energy be shifted back to the parties from the state by returning to the caucus system that prevailed until a 1915 referendum gave us the direct, open primary we have today? (‘Direct’ rather than at a remove, with party stalwarts caucusing and party bosses, too often, picking the candidate in ‘smoke-filled rooms’; ‘open’ because voters do not register with a party, choosing a party ballot only in the polling booth.) Or could a simpler qualifying election, adopted in Washington State and this year in California and being considered in New York, one that in addition produces only two candidates for the general election, be considered?

The Vermont Legislature had, in fact, been discussing the timing of the primary in mid-term elections (in presidential election years the primary is over around Town Meeting Day) for years by the time the 45-day requirement came along. To move the date up was “the simplest and most practical thing to do,” says Rep. Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, chair of the House Government Operations Committee. The caucus system (with party conventions nominating candidates) was one of the solutions brought up in her committee, but “we quickly realized that such a change would have needed a lot more time than we had.”

To understand why returning to the caucus format was under discussion at all, consider that by requiring the political parties to come up with the candidates for the November ballot a state would not only unload the expense of multiple primary ballots—Vermont voters, since they do not register to vote as members of a party, have a “pick-a-party primary,” choosing one of three ballots once inside the polling booth—but removes most of the burden on town clerks and their staff. From Deb Markowitz’s perspective as Secretary of State, primaries are “a political party exercise run by the state.” And, by extension, paid for by the taxpayers. (For more information about Vermont’s caucus system, see the addendum at the end of this story.)

As is their custom in every election, state Reps. Mike Obuchowski and Carolyn Partridge were outside the Masonic Temple in Bellows Falls to greet voters. Photo by Randy Holhut.

To understand why the idea was given short shrift—beyond the lengthy committee debate it would have triggered—remember that the same “non-partisan” registration process that produces the pick-a-party primary means that the town committees for each major party, which by statute meet and caucus annually, cannot exclude anyone who wants to take part. At least in theory, people of other political persuasions could infiltrate a party caucus and shape the outcome at the party conventions. Another negative, in caucus states like Iowa, only about 6% or 7% of registered voters participate.

So, while the House considered returning to a caucus system and thereby getting rid of the whole laborious and costly process of a primary election run by the state, it was only a brief flirtation.

Could there be another way around the cumbersome and expensive primary process we now have, while leaving in place the non-partisan voter registration that seems to suit the independent Vermont voter?

It’s low voter participation in primaries that is the driver for this discussion. Democrats, in particular, favor more “democracy,” that is, more voters voting. Until this year’s 24% turnout, participation in choosing party candidates had gone from highs in the 1980s of near 30% down to 14.85% in 2002 and 8.5% by 2008. In 2002, the last year there was an open race for governor, the turnout was just 14.95%.

Rep. Michel Consejo, (D-Franklin), a member of the Government Operations committee, thinks low turnout is the key issue. And he says primaries won’t come up again for a while because reapportionment, which must be accomplished in 2011, “will overshadow everything else this session.”

Judy Bevans, now head of the Vermont Democratic Party, remembers meeting with Kathy DeWolfe, Vermont’s Director of Elections and Campaign Finance, Rob Roper, then executive director of the Republican party, and Morgan Daybell, the Progressives’ ED a few years ago to look into alternative primary voting models that might increase voter turnout and reduce costs. Afterward, Bevans looked into the possibilities, of which, she says, there are many. Her conclusion: “There’s no way of handling a primary that is the best way,” that is, the best way to get “the fairest vote, the greatest turnout, the fewest unintended consequences and the most accurate vote count.” She adds, “A system that has more than two candidates is just difficult because plurality voting is difficult.” In any case, with no feedback from either the Republicans or the Progressives, the matter was dropped.

An alternative that has surfaced in other parts of the country is the “Top-Two” primary, a version of which was just voted in by Californians this June as Proposition 14. It has already been used twice in Washington State, after being adopted by a simple majority vote in a 2006 referendum. New York is considering but has not yet voted on a Top-Two format.

Republicans as well as Democrats are among its supporters. You can listen in on a New York Times debate about the merits of Top-Two primaries at http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/will-californias-top-two-primary-work/

This “fully open” variant on a primary presents all voters with a single ballot showing all candidates in each race, with whatever party affiliation (or self-description, since candidates don’t need to belong to a party and can call themselves anything they like—“Republican-Tea Partisan” or “I Didn’t Like Ike,” say) they want to declare, or none. (Voters don’t register with a party either.) In this it resembles the current Vermont ballots for local races which show all candidates with their party affiliation, have a write-in line and request a vote for one, two, three or more candidates as each race requires. Needless to say, the existing parties are not enthusiastic—the change had to go to direct to the voters to be passed.

As its name indicates, the Top-Two primary sends the top two vote-getters to the general election. To some people’s surprise this means there could be two Republicans or two Democrats, though this year might have produced a crop of Tea Party Republican vs. “I’m a Fiscally Conservative Democrat” races.

Proponents assert that this process leads to the election of more moderate candidates. A candidate like Susan Bartlett, with her “moderate” stance, might have been able to attract some Republicans as well as middle-of-the-road Democrats, for example. Even if two of the same party are nominated, only one would be likely to be the candidate who has passed the “ideological purity test increasingly required of party nominees in the present system,” as supporters like former Oregon Secretary of State Phil Keisling put it.

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Another plus, its backers say, is that all candidates have reason to get out and run. Brian Dubie, competing with a full slate of other candidates, would have been more likely to, well, run, rather than hang back from debates and forums. And Republican voters, instead of staying home because there was no Dubie challenger, would, it’s assumed, come out to vote for their candidate, boosting voter participation over all.

The Top-Two model is also fairer, so supporters say, because, with all candidates’ names appearing on one ballot, even non-major party candidates, of which there are always a goodly number in Vermont, get more exposure. Of course, self-funded candidates also get exposure and need not fly under their true colors.

Since this model produces a two-way race in the general election, there’s no need for instant runoff voting. (If the vote were as close for the top three vote-getters as in the recent Democratic primary race, there might be a recount as there was this year, but not a runoff.) And proponents point out that Top-Two primaries lead to a general election in which the winner has a clear majority, relevant in Vermont where three-way statewide races are not unknown.

This November, had a Top-Two system been in place last month and the vote count the same as under the present primary system, Vermonters would still be choosing between Brian Dubie and Peter Shumlin, the top two vote-getters in the primary, with 28,452 and 18,301 respectively, but only they would be on the ballot. Minor party candidates, who do not now engage in the primary since they are not major parties, have their chance to appeal to all Vermont voters with the Top-Two primary model.

Whether either of these models will emerge for discussion in the upcoming legislative session is doubtful, but change is in the air, as new concerns with the voting process, nearly 100 years after the last major change—from “smoke-filled rooms” and party caucuses to the direct primary as we know it—emerge. If the Democrat becomes governor, campaign finance reform may surface in House Government Operations, Rep. Sweaney says.

Both she and Sen. White, assuming they are re-elected, say they are looking forward to hearings on a wide array of election issues. Candidates are already taking stock of the fact that primary voting is now spread out over seven weeks and general election ballots are available as soon as ballots are delivered—“early voting” began Sept. 20th this year. The calendar for campaign-finance disclosure doesn’t reflect this new reality. Since public records, in a digital world, can be made available, the question becomes whether financial reporting should be more frequent and more quickly and widely accessible to the public.

After the long, active Democratic primary and a good turnout, making structural changes in the primary to boost voter participation might, after all, be gratuitous. Just have an “exciting primary as we had this year,” says Michel Consejo, and the problem is solved. When there are competitive races, voter interest is piqued and turnout peaks, too.

*See the very lively and informative Vermont State Archives article at http://vermont-archives.org/govhistory/governance/Primary/report.htm to see the arguments that carried the day for direct primaries, and, for more context, the concise report on how and when Vermont voters threw out the caucus system via a statewide referendum: http://vermont-archives.org/govhistory/governance/Referendum/pdf/1914P.pdf/em>