Primary Elections and Majority Nominations

Charles K. Lush

American Political Science Review, 1907, vol. 2, issue 1, 43-47

Abstract: The question of majority nominations in primary elections has been before the Wisconsin legislature during the last two sessions. (1905, Special Session, Bill 11A, and 1907, Bill 350A). Both times the proposition of securing majority nominations by means of the “second choice” has met defeat.This is written with the hope of making plain the basic principle upon which the second choice amendment to the primary rests. It is the principle that the nominee of a political party should represent the party principles or policy of the majority of the voters of the party. It prevents the possibility of a man representing the principles of only one-fourth of the voting strength of the party being nominated as the candidate of the party, and in direct conflict with the views of three-fourths of the voters of the party. It was the recognition of this principle that caused the conventions to nominate by majority vote of the delegates instead of by plurality. The present Wisconsin primary law prevents a number of candidates representing the majority sentiment as to party principles from coming into the field as candidates for the nomination for fear the candidate of a minority may be named by receiving a higher vote than any one candidate among the majority candidates. The present primary is, in effect, a convention to which every voter is a delegate and in which the candidate receiving the most votes on the first ballot is the nominee. The remedy lies either in the adoption of the second choice amendment (derisively known as the Mary Ann law), or by return to the convention system.

Date: 1907
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