By Don Paskini
It's very impressive that over 16,000 people in Totnes voted to choose the Tory candidate for the next election in an "open primary". Normally, about 100-300 people are involved in these kinds of selections. Couple of thoughts:
* Open primaries give a huge advantage to people who have "proper jobs". For example, in this case the candidate who was a doctor beat two people who were involved in local government. I think this is broadly a good thing, but it is worth having another look at how much campaigning candidates are allowed to do. If local people are basically making their minds up on the basis of one leaflet per candidate, then parties might end up getting stuck with people who would, in fact, be pretty hopeless candidates and/or MPs.
* Apparently the cost of the whole thing was £40,000. That's OK for a one-off, but not a good use of resources for parties to adopt as the main way of selecting their candidates (for that amount of money, you could get a full time campaign organiser, office, phone line, risograph etc.) It becomes more feasible if the cost per constituency can be got down to about £3-5,000.
* One way to do this could be for local parties to agree to hold their primaries on the same day and send out the information together and let people choose which primaries to vote in. It would require a culture shift for local parties to work together in this way - but isn't changing the culture and doing things differently what this is all meant to be about?
This post was first published on Don Paskini's blog.
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In Oregon our primaries are in May, California's are Feb and Texas in March etc etc.
* Those with proper jobs have an advantage - or is it those with proper money and time on their hands - not in this case (in terms of time) - but I'm not sure how to get round that.
>>> That's always going to be for the public to decide. Often someone who overtly spends more money finds that it counts against them.
* Did (do) the candidates have to be party members ? Some of the past publicity has suggested not. This seems bizarre
>>> In the US, anyone can stand on any ticket (last year one man stood in both Republican and Democrat primaries for the same post, and won both!). But that's the US rules. In the UK parties can decide how the shortlist is determined.
- what's to stop opposition parties enrolling just to spoil things or split the vote. Similarly what's to stop opposition voters voting for the least electable candidate ?
>>> In theory it can happen, and the LibDems allegedly tried it in Totnes (and miserably failed). Two factors - (a) There are only so many activists and spoliers. The larger the available voters, the less of an impact any spoiling/trolling will have. (b) If all parties held a primary at the same time the activists would be more concerned about their own party than trolling another. Example (imagine open primaries for London Mayor held on the same day): would Ken Livingstone supporters spend their time campaigning against Boris Johnson, at the risk of Ken losing to Alan Sugar?
* What would it do for women only shortlists ? Whatever you think of Open Primaries or women only shortlists, they do seem to be mutually exclusive
>>> Women only shortlists and all PC quotas would be dead! Is that a problem? It didn't seem to do women any harm in Totnes!
* It would seem logical to me that if you have open primary in one constituency you should have them in all - yet how would this allow parties to place key people in the safer seats ? Supposing you had a leader elected by the party, who then couldn't secure a nomination in a safe seat - seems unlikely, but in an open race with an open electorate the big names would attract the most fringe candidates, and the most unpredictable votes.
>>> Ah, the wonders of democracy!! Wouldn't it be interesting to see if Peter Mandelson could land a safe seat in an open primary instead of a central office stitch up! Break out the popcorn!
Regarding the cost. From what I hear most of the cost was postage, plus a payment to the (independent) counters. Half the postage cost was pre-paying for the ballot return. If that can be avoided by providing convenient ballot drop sites (post offices, libraries, supermarkets) that cost could halve. By the way, in Oregon all elections (including the presidential election) are "vote by mail"; the voter has to pay the postage but usually uses a drop site for free.
Having negotiated a better price for the counting (more business, more discount) each primary is down to 20,000 per constituency (or c. 7,000 per party).
Assuming an election every 4 years, this basically means that if every MP (on average) cut their expenses by 5,000 a year, the primaries would pay for themselves!
It wouldn't.
There's probably a way to embed a link in a comment as well but without a preview option it's difficult to experiment.
This is just like being back on Slashdot. Only not so many trolls !!
I don't think it would be right, though, that somebody like Gould, whose parents can afford to indulge her, could have thsat sort of unfair advantage over candidates from less humble backgrounds. but then again, Blairites never really WERE for genuine equaility, were they?
Remember that in an open primary, people are making up their minds basically from reading one leaflet from each candidate (a tiny minority will go to hustings). So if there were half a dozen candidates, then the candidate who has a PR company doing her leaflets, some high profile endorsements and who could also run a canvassing operation would have been likely to do pretty well.
Even if only 25% of people wanted a young Blairite, that might be enough to win the selection if the opposition split enough ways.
Putting aside your own feelings about Georgia, do you think the open primary system would help or hinder young candidates from the New Labour elite?
* Those with proper jobs have an advantage - or is it those with proper money and time on their hands - not in this case (in terms of time) - but I'm not sure how to get round that.
* Did (do) the candidates have to be party members ? Some of the past publicity has suggested not. This seems bizarre - what's to stop opposition parties enrolling just to spoil things or split the vote. Similarly what's to stop opposition voters voting for the least electable candidate ?
* What would it do for women only shortlists ? Whatever you think of Open Primaries or women only shortlists, they do seem to be mutually exclusive
* It would seem logical to me that if you have open primary in one constituency you should have them in all - yet how would this allow parties to place key people in the safer seats ? Supposing you had a leader elected by the party, who then couldn't secure a nomination in a safe seat - seems unlikely, but in an open race with an open electorate the big names would attract the most fringe candidates, and the most unpredictable votes.
Still interesting though
As regards her "work" with the Blair "Faith" Foundation, I doubt that Blairs hypocrisy goes down very well with even the most religious types - and how long did it last for? a couple of hours a week for a couple of months?
Her "canvassing operation" was augmented by a PR company, and doubtless, bankrolled by daddy - or mummy.
As you said we are less likely to suffer career politicians
It's impossible to know, but I suspect Georgia would have probably done pretty well under an open primary system.
She seemed to have quite a good canvassing operation going and Tony Blair, whose faith foundation she works for, is probably still relatively popular amongst people in Erith and Thamesmead who might vote in a Labour primary.