Fall 1996
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Robert J. Kolesar
John Carroll University
kolesar@ix.netcom.com
Published on H-Pol@ksuvm.ksu.edu: March 15, 1996
Howard Reiter may well be right that the presidential nominating process is "slouching toward a nationwide primary." While criticisms of the primary system are evident again this year, as they have been in previous presidential election years, few commentators question the fundamental premises of the desirability of nominating candidates through partisan primaries. Reforms generally have been directed at enhancing the role of primaries, and at making the primary system work more effectively. Yet despite a full generation of constant tinkering, discontent with the nominating system has not abated.
Since the inception of the direct primary in the Progressive Era, the practical effects of its use have fallen far short of the hopes held for it by its major proponents. In 1909, Charles Merriam wrote of it that "Some bosses are wondering why they feared the law; and some reformers are wondering why they favored it"; after two decades of further experience with direct primaries, Merriam sensibly observed that "the exaggerated predictions regarding the workings of the direct nominating system, both by friends and foes, were not fulfilled in practice, although some of them linger in the minds of those who place loyalty to a plan above loyalty to a fact" (Merriam, 213).
Generally friendly to the direct primary system, and certainly dubious about a return to the convention system which it had replaced, Merriam did observe major problems in the 1920s. The shortcomings included the rise of advertising, public relations, the increase in campaign expenses and the development of partisan mechanisms of control, including preprimary slating and conventions (Merriam, 214-216). The rapid movement toward direct primaries that had taken place in the Progressive Era came to a halt in the twenties; eight states that had instituted presidential primaries before 1916, for example, discontinued them between 1917 and 1945 (Argersinger, 506-508).
There was an alternative, however, to both direct primaries and the convention system, one which Merriam recognized would provide "another way out of the tangle"-- proportional representation (PR) as used in several American cities at the time, including Cleveland and Cincinnati. Given recent advances in cities in the United States, and more generally abroad, Merriam noted that "the range and sweep of the non-partisan movement on the one hand and the proportional system on the other must challenge the attention of any serious student of party tendencies" (Merriam, 217-18, 346, also 280, 282). The leading advocates of PR in this country, Clarence Hoag and George Hallett, argued that it would make "preliminary or primary elections entirely superfluous" even as it would show better than any other nominating system "which candidates of each party best represent the party's voters." (Hoag and Hallett, 109)
It would accomplish this because of its use of a preferential ballot using a single transferable vote. For legislatures multi-member districts were sought to assure proportionality, but majority preferential voting could be used for elections involving a single office. Reformers had devised "one elaborate system after another--the 'closed primary,' the 'open primary,' the 'run-off' primary of the South, the elephantine 'Richards primary' of South Dakota, etc.--but all fail to accomplish their purpose, for all are founded on the single-shot majority vote with its inevitable tendency to machine control" (Hoag and Hallet, 109).
The single transferable vote, in contrast, was a model of simplicity, involving only one election, and one ballot, thus encouraging greater participation and giving each voter a full range of choices. Access to the ballot was by petition. All candidates who satisfied petition requirements would be placed on the same ballot. The individual voter could vote for as many candidates as he or she wished, but needed to rank each according to the voter's preference.
In the majority preferential system, if a candidate attained 50 percent of the first preferences, the candidate would be elected; if none did on the basis of first preferences, the candidate who received the lowest number of votes would be eliminated and second preference votes would be distributed among the remaining candidates. The process would continue until one candidate had accumulated 50 percent of the ballot.
The single transferable vote was more commonly used in muti-member districts. In such elections, a "quota" was calculated first (quota = (total vote cast/(number of seats to be filled + 1)) + 1). If candidates reached this quota on the basis of first choice votes, they were declared elected. Votes over and above the quota ("surplus votes") were distributed to remaining candidates, and, as well, the candidate with the fewest votes was eliminated and the votes redistributed to the individual voters' next preference. The ballot-transfer process continued until all seats were filled. (See Amy, 225-238, for fuller explanation of the mechanics involved here.)
Since the 1890s advocates, organized in the Proportional Representation League, had argued that PR, using the single transferable vote, was the only electoral reform that had the potential to transform politics in fundamental ways. In 1911 the League decided upon a strategy of pursuing PR in cities. PR soon was endorsed by the National Municipal League, becoming part of its Model City Charter along with, and complementary to, Council- Manager government, At-Large elections, the Short Ballot, and Non-Partisanship. PR adoptions followed in Ashtabula, Ohio, Boulder, Colorado, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Hamilton, Ohio between 1915 and 1926. The elimination of primaries under PR was generally offered as part of broader arguments which centered on the inequities of single- member districting and the benefits of minority representation.
It was the stunning success of reform in Cincinnati that highlighted the efficacy of the single transferable vote and eliminating primaries. There, the Republican organization had typically controlled the election of all but one or two members of a large council; reformers had hoped to assure an effective council minority through the adoption of PR. Instead, they won a majority. "Before the introduction of proportional representation in Cincinnati, the plan of voting under the so- called majority system permitted the control of government by a minority," Henry Bentley, chairman of the reformist City Charter Committee wrote. "The last two elections have conclusively demonstrated that the once vaunted majority is, and probably always has been, a minority disguised as a majority by an unfair and fallacious system of counting the vote." Bentley put principal emphasis on the role of primaries in maintaining the unfair advantages of the machine. That was where the machine could be most effective. PR's single transferable vote "combined the primary with general election. It compelled the citizens as a whole to take part in the selection of candidates, and this of itself removed the greatest obstacle to good government, the power of an organized minority to control the selection of candidates" (Bentley, 65-67).
For a variety reasons, including the determined opposition of both major political parties, the domestic political impact of the Cold War, and heightened racial tensions, PR was abandoned by the 1960s in all but one of the cities in which it had been adopted. But before then, in other cities where PR was used (which included New York City and Yonkers, New York, Wheeling, West Virginia, Toledo, Ohio, and a number of cities in Massachusetts), reformers also pointed to the benefit of the elimination of primaries by the single transferable vote. Today PR is again being considered by some as a means to provide for representation of minorities without resorting to affirmative gerrymandering. It may also be an opportune time to reconsider the benefits of replacing the direct primary system with a preferential ballot and single transferable vote.
Selected Bibliography