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Dorchester picks Marty Walsh's successor in the House of Representatives
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More Candidates for State Secretary.
More Candidates are needed for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to update the Elections Division and the Records Divisions.
How's this really an election
How's this really an election if only registered people of the Democratic party can vote in a primary? Shouldn't everyone, which isn't a registered (D) but unenrolled or (R), at least be able to have a write in candidate or a vote of no confidence against a candidate running unopposed?
Um ....
Not just registered Democrats can vote. Anybody who's unenrolled can vote as well. As for Republicans, they'll get their chance to vote against him (or cast a blank) in the final election.
Adam
Please don't feed wing nuts facts. It hurts their heads.
Problem with that Adam is simple
If there's only a Democratic primary, then the people who vote in said primary (Ds or Us) can select from only Democratic candidates. What is so wrong with the very sensible idea of a) putting all eligible candidates, regardless of party affiliation, on a SINGLE primary ballot (said ballot would also include write-ins and "vote of no confidence" choices) and b) eliminating this very pointless requirement of requiring an unenrolled voter to choose a party affiliation to participate in said primary election?
How the system works
Primary elections are held for each of the parties seeking to nominate a candidate. That would include Democrats, Republicans, Green, Libertarian, etc, etc. All this does is narrow down the number of candidates in each party to one.
Any person can vote in a primary. However, you must declare which party you wish to participate in. So if you want to vote on the Democratic ballot, you declare that party and the election worker hands you a Democratic ballot. Same would be true for Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc.
If you are un-enrolled (no party affiliation) you automatically retain that status regardless of which ballot you choose. Again to be clear, all the primary does is narrow the field within each party. The Primary election seeks only to narrow the field within each party.
Then in the final election, each party, which has been narrowed to one person, will be on the final ballot. Any voter can vote for any person regardless of the party they are from in the final election.
In the case here, the only party opting to advance more than one candidate for this office was the Democrats.
At the final election, voters will have an option to write in a preferred candidate if they so choose. Ballots always have slots for write-ins. At that time additional parties may advance a candidate to be on the ballot as well.
It's rather concerning that a lot of people do not understand how the voting system works.
I for one do understand how the voting system
works. I also believe that most other reasonably intelligent people do so as well. However, please explain to us how this outdated and arcane system whereby we require that unenrolled voters MUST declare a party affiliation in order to vote in a primary is necessary in order to narrow the field to one candidate from each party? Placing all primary candidates on one ballot, and then selecting the top candidate from each party for inclusion in the final election, would serve exactly the same purpose. It would also preserve the concept of a truly secret ballot - which the "What ballot do you want?" question poll workers ask - as well as recording the responses received, which become part the public record of the election, not to mention the fact that the ballots are different colors that the poll workers (and perhaps your neighbors who happen to be at the polling place at the same time as well) can easily see- totally contradicts.
Further, it would also give unenrolled and write-in candidates a greater sense of how the voters are responding to their messages BEFORE the final election (and may encourage some candidates to drop out earlier - saving money, time, and other resources for everyone). Lastly, it would be much easier and less expensive to implement for the state, as it would eliminate the whole "Gee, we have X number of unenrolled voters. How many ballots for each party do you think we'll need?" discussion.
Dan is a great guy, he has
Dan is a great guy, he has done a lot for Dorchester. I am excited and proud to have him representing us!