The "independent" takeover of the Republican Party (and what to do about it)

For several cycles, I've complained about the NH Primary rules. The State allows for "undeclared" voters, whom don't identify themselves with a particular party, to grab the ballot of their choice on Primary Day to participate in that party's nomination process. While the intentions of this rule might, prima facie, appear fair and equitable, the results, ultimately are disingenuous to both parties, but particularly to the Republican Party.

For many years, the actual members of the Republican Party (there really is a process to become a voting member of the party) set the platform by which, in-general, candidates seeking the nomination to represent their party in the general election should subscribe to. There are obviously going to be varying levels of divergence from the official platform on the part of every candidate - that's the reason for the Primary in the first place. The problem is, when you allow Independents to grab a Republican ballot on Primary Day, you are allowing self-professed, non-supporters of the Republican platform to select the candidate whom will, in the general election, represent his/her own views as the authoritative position of the party's.

The obvious result is shown by New Hampshire's nomination of John McCain in February 2008. Senator McCain is a noble man, a war-hero, and a true patriot. But his views are far from those of the Republican Party's on many issues. He often broke ranks from the Republican Party to side with the Democrats on issues like amnesty for illegal aliens and federal-funding for stem cell research. He helped craft anti-constitutional campaign finance reform that blatantly attacks the first amendment. The list goes on.

Senator McCain won our party's nomination because the independents infiltrated our Primary to vote for him. He certainly is appealing to the moderate/independent voter, and I am not suggesting he didn't deserve an opportunity to run, but the result of him winning the Republican nomination was a depletion of the Republican base in the general election. I, for one, recognized, well in advance that this was a case where I had to hold my nose and pull the lever for Senator McCain because the damage an Obama Presidency would cause would be life-altering for our country - a belief, I fear, we are seeing played out even faster than I feared. But, not all of our Republican friends did the same. Not to discredit President Obama and the cult of personality that drove him to the White House, but if you look at the numbers in detail, Senator McCain was unable to win over the Republican base, and this is why we lost the White House.

I'd like to see two changes to election law in our state, and nationally. First, eliminate same-day declaration at the polls. Anybody can be a Republican (or a Democrat), but they must register as such in advance of the Primary, and they can't un-register immediately after casting their Primary ballot. Second, ballot counting should be changed to require a 50%+1 count before a winner is declared (both in the primaries and the general election which should include as many parties as qualified - not just Republican and Democrat) and the voting process should be a ranking system 1 through x. I am encouraged to see Libertarian and Green Party candidates here and there, but nobody is willing to vote for these fringe candidates for fear of throwing out their votes. If the voting process allowed for ranking of candidates, and required elimination processing until a single candidate achieved 50% +1 of the votes, then we could elect representatives with a mandate to execute their stated agendas.

Here's how it would work. Each ballot would list all of the eligible names from all of the parties for a given office in randomized order. Voters would be given a bubble-sheet like the SAT with numbers 1 - x on them. Each number may be used only once. Each round of ballot processing would be done as follows:

1. Every ballot is counted as a vote for the highest ranked [remaining] candidate. If any one candidate achievs 50%+1 votes, then they are declared the winner and tallying is stopped.
2. If no candidate has achieved 50%+1 votes, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the next round proceeds (GoTo:1 for my developer friends).

The benefit to a process like this is that it accomplishes the same goal as "run off" elections that some municipalities already use without requiring the voters to return to the voting booth several times. Additionally, the elimination process allows for fringe/third-party candidates to truly compete. Lastly, in primaries which have several similar candidates but have been infiltrated by outsiders - or "Mavericks" - who will gain all of the non-similarity vote, the Party may still be represented by an insider - assuming most of the people who voted for a Mike Huckabee in round 1 would switch to another conservative candidate as their second choice. While a John McCain might gain 35% of the vote in round one, his round 2 numbers aren't likely to increase nearly as much as his remaining competition of similar candidates who split the votes of the real Party insiders.