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No. Would even you really want this? Think about the multitude of races on your ballot every election (or at least most elections). Do you have time to study the positions of every single candidate?
Exactly how much time do you feel is too much time to invest in learning about the candidates before voting?
Is 30 minutes too much? How about 10? Is 5 minutes too much of a sacrifice?
Let's say I wanted to vote a straight ticket ballot. I believe it would take me under 10 minutes to determine the party of each candidate on the ballot and write it down to take to the polling place with me. Do you feel that is too much of a burden?
I think that to study the effects a nonpartisan government would have on the country, we should look at countries and jurisdictions that have already done so. For example, take Nebraska. During the Great Depression, voters decided it would be a great idea to eliminate the upper house of the state legislature (making it unicameral) and make the new legislature completely nonpartisan. Today, the "Unicameral", as the Nebraska Legislature is referred to within the state's political lexicon, remains the only state legislature in the U.S. to have a nonpartisan, unicameral nature.
I am not going to pretend that I understand another state's politics (far too many users on this forum do so and end up looking like fools,) so I won't comment on how effective their system is in terms of governance. If there are any users here who live in Nebraska who could comment, that would be helpful.
At face value, I'd like to say that making all races nonpartisan could be a good thing. Far too many voters head to the polls and simply check off the name of the candidate that belongs to the same political party, without considering what the consequences may be. We call them "party loyalists". On a nonpartisan ballot, voters would be forced to take into account the individual candidates' positions on the issues, without having to overtly worry about party affiliation.
However, making races nonpartisan on the surface won't suffice to fix our "broken" political system. It may solve one problem, but it would have to be packaged with more reforms (campaign finance, new voting system, etc.) in order to ensure that Americans get the best representation they can.
Wiki says that Texas Municipal elections are "non-partisan" - and for the most part that is true. It's also true that under State Election Code that any "home rule city" in Texas can have in place OR amend their Charter to hold Partisan Municipal elections. To my knowledge - Houston is the only large city in Texas that does this, but it only takes 5,000 people to be able to be designated as a "home rule city".
I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro area - elections are Non-Partisan and it's no problem. I do have to spend a couple of hours before an election to check out all the candidates, but the local news and voter forums with all candidates asked to attend - do a good job of allowing the voters access to the candidates. I think it works well.
I have no idea what Party any of my elected local officials belong to - and I don't care. I don't vote for anyone based on a "Letter" (D,R,L,I,other) next to their name. Never have, never will.
The arithmetic of "winner take all" forces the existence of two major parties. But everyone who has ever watched party politics can plainly see that both major parties could easily split into two or three good-sized parties - and would, if we had proportional representation and a parliamentary government.
We have neither, so the rest of your post is moot.
In Washington state, there are no party primaries. There is one primary, with all candidates, regardless of party, appearing on the ballot. All voters, regardless of party, choose among all the primary candidates. The top 2 finishers for each position run against each other in the general.
The ballots do list the candidates' party affiliations, if any.
As far as I know, in all states, the state taxpayers pay both the primary and general election costs.
I cannot say that I am surprised that Washington State deliberately violates the constitutionally protected rights of its citizens. It is par for the course for regressive fascist States that pretend to be "liberal" and "progressive."
Every political party in the US has the right to determine who their members are, and who is allowed to vote in their party primaries, without interference from the State. That is not just my opinion, but the opinion of the Supreme Court in California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567 (2000).
this would be interesting on the local level especially considering there are no TV ads or billboards for county school board or city councilmen.
You would basically watch people vote for people they have never met or never seen... or have low turnout elections where the winner just has name recognition.
All billboards are banned in Alaska.
As far as TV is concerned, that is what the "off" button is for.
Why is there an inclination to hide any information from voters?
How is that hiding anything, if the voter is an informed voter they would know who it is they are going to vote for before walking in the voting booth and if they are so clueless as to know who is who then maybe for the good of the Nation they should simply pass on voting. One cannot whine on and on about low information voters putting Obama into the Whitehouse then support low information voters when it might be some from their own Party. Good grief listen to yourself
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