{"id":111423,"date":"2020-03-05T10:50:47","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T15:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=111423"},"modified":"2020-03-05T10:50:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T15:50:47","slug":"letters-political-primaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=111423","title":{"rendered":"LETTERS: Political primaries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Offers alternative to current primary process, scheduling<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To the Editor:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A political primary is a preliminary election in which the\nregistered voters of a political party nominate candidates for office [Editor\u2019s note: Some states have \u2018open\nprimaries\u2019 that allow any registered voter of any party to participate<\/em>].\nThe key word here is preliminary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current system allows small states such as Iowa and New Hampshire\n(assisted by the media) to award front-runner status to victorious candidates [Editor\u2019s note: Some via a caucus system<\/em>].\nFrom there, the candidates travel a path determined by which states wants to\n“leap frog” the other by moving up their primary dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Candidates are whisked across the country without any real\nability to distinguish regional issues from national issues. Consequently,\nparty platforms are determined by a make-it-up-as-you-go approach. If the\nprimary process were organized on a regional basis, candidates would be able to\nstudy the regional issues, campaign to confirm those issues and then receive votes\nbased on the solutions they propose. A regional approach would also prevent a premature\nselection of a front-runner because success in one region certainly would not\nguarantee success in the next region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would also further validate the process because each\nstate would still have a say all the way down to the end. Finally, the number\nof delegates awarded in each state should be determined by the percentage of\nvotes won by each candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accordingly, the political primaries should occur between\nJanuary and June of each presidential election year. Each of the six regions\nwould be assigned a particular month. A lottery held in June of the previous\nyear would determine which month each region holds its primaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following example illustrates the format:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

January: <\/strong>Southern (eight): Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

February<\/strong>: Southwestern (nine): Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March: <\/strong>Atlantic (eight): Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April: <\/strong>New England (eight): Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May: <\/strong>Northwestern (nine): Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June: <\/strong>Middle West (nine): Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Bialek, Cleveland, Ohio<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Offers alternative to current primary process, scheduling To the Editor: A political primary is a preliminary election in which the registered voters of a political party nominate candidates for office [Editor\u2019s note: Some states have \u2018open primaries\u2019 that allow any registered voter of any party to participate]. The key word here is preliminary. The current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23678,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letterstotheeditor","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}