Two steps to fix NM’s broken political system

In the Journal, former New Mexico State Representative Bob Perls makes an appeal for New Mexico voters to join the fight for open primaries in the state. He argues, “Political parties should be players in the political marketplace, not the rule setters, and creating nonpartisan primaries puts the voters in charge, not the parties. The parties can and do still endorse their candidates, but they don’t control who can vote in a public election as they do today in New Mexico.”

First, we make primaries nonpartisan so all candidates run together in a single election open to all voters. Candidates can still label themselves with a party or no party, but they all have to talk to all voters to get past the first round of public elections, not just the party regulars.advertisement

Second, the top four vote-getters move on to the general election in which ranked-choice voting is used to choose the winner. It’s simple, like going to an ice cream shop. If your first choice, chocolate, is sold out, then you order your second choice, vanilla, and if that is sold out, your third choice might be coffee.

Political parties should be players in the political marketplace, not the rule setters, and creating nonpartisan primaries puts the voters in charge, not the parties. The parties can and do still endorse their candidates, but they don’t control who can vote in a public election as they do today in New Mexico.

Read the full article here.