This is America and freedom of association is enshrined in the Constitution. Parties have a right to pick their candidates however they want to. They don’t have a right to have the government pay for that selection process for free and the US is one of the only counties that I am aware of that does this. |
Virginia had a convention and picked Youngkin because they were afraid their primary voters would pick Amanda Chase who couldn’t win. |
Freedom of association, yes - but nowhere in the Constitution are political parties even mentioned. I think we should have ranked-choice voting. |
RCV is also not mentioned in the constitution and since Democratic selection is mentioned, RCV is probably unconstitutional if it was legally contested. |
This has actually been proven in an academic study.
https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/the-effect-of-ranked-choice-voting-in-maine-44bbb7374847 |
I don’t see how it makes appealing to a narrow basis less beneficial in a crowded primary. If there are 4 Ds and 1 R running, it’s very possible that even though 75 % of the voters would prefer any of the Ds to the R the R goes through to the general if he has a solid base. |
| If you read anything on the jungle primary you’ll see it’s had lots of unintended consequences particularly from people trying to game the system. Lots of people (across the political spectrum and inside and outside politics) are unhappy with it. Probably good for political consultants though. |