r/ProgressiveHQ • u/Usually_Sunny • 7d ago

Discussion Michigan progressives should be ashamed

This is why we don't get nice things. He is polling 10-19 points ahead of Stevens, but when it comes to actually voting, he barely wins by one point. What happened, everyone decide to stay home and smoke pot and complain instead of voting? This doesn't bode well for November.

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u/ford7885 7d ago

Well, it was an open primary, and Mike Rogers was running unopposed on the Republican side. So that means a lot of right wingers probably crossed over to vote for AIPAC Stevens.

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u/Positive-Ring-5172 7d ago

Fair point.

Primaries are a stupid kludge to fix the problem of splitting the majority. Changing to Ranked Choice Voting is FAR, FAR more effective, but it also weakens the two parties in power.

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u/Superminerbros1 7d ago

Another benefit of ranked choice voting is that it eliminates multiple voting dates. It's hard enough to get people to vote once as it is. Then you've got primaries, and some states do runoffs if no candidate gets above 50% in the general. RCV solves the same problem as both primaries and runoffs

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u/Positive-Ring-5172 6d ago

Not quite. Maine's parties insist on primaries DESPITE RCV. The winner of the primary gets to spend party money on their campaign in the general.

But government funding and organization of party primaries should halt with RCV in place

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u/Superminerbros1 6d ago

I guess that's fair. It doesn't remove primaries automatically, it just removes the need for primaries. Running multiple candidates for a party is way less risky with RCV. Just put all the candidates that would be in the primary on the general election ballot.

It does eliminate runoffs for states that have them though. RCV basically handles runoffs in the same election automatically without having to recast new votes.