Party Boss for Sale Again Cartoon

The 2015 New Jersey main election came and went without me. That's right: I didn't vote, so sue me.

I live in the 29^th Legislative District, which hasn't supported anyone to the right of Henry Wallace or George McGovern since the Johnson administration – the ANDREW Johnson administration – so why bother? Additionally, there were no contested races – both the Republican and Autonomous legislative nomination ballots featured candidates put upwardly past the official party organizations and nobody else.

Since the last thing in the earth I want to practice is to further political party stranglehold control over the nominating process in New Jersey, I elected to pass. Equally P.J. O'Rourke entitled one of his books, "Don't Vote It Only Encourages the Bastards."

So and so I become the lecture, this time from Max Pizarro at Th'southward PolitickerNJ.com :

All right, don't complain. You don't like it? Fine. You call back this state is a disaster expanse? Okay. But don't complain. Just do not dare mutter. Road rage? Suck information technology up. Violent criminal offence? Suck it up. High property taxes? Suck it upward.

Too much blood bled with the expectation – or at to the lowest degree the mail service-game public explanation – of that American-protected right to vote.

Concluding night, we didn't earn the right to mutter, every bit rain-bullied and civics-bothered "voters" allowed motorcar and independent expenditure PAC politics to blanket New Jersey in the absence of people power.

With all due respect, which means just the reverse whenever you hear it, put a sock in it, Max, considering not voting is sometimes every bit much an expression of political will as voting. When you hold an election and nobody comes, what does that tell y'all nigh those who hold it?

I'm pretty sure my son did not do half dozen deployments in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait, or my great-granddad crouch behind a low, stone wall on Picayune Circular Height some 152 years agone shy one month to protect entrenched political parties and bosses and fertilize a political system that ignores the people, prevents over half of them from participating and is a joke.

And all those problems you mentioned, Max? When the people who created them are the aforementioned people who control access to and are pretty much exclusively on the ballot, what exactly is the point of it all?

In looking around at various counties throughout the state, well-nigh of the turnout figures I saw were single-digit in nature, which tells me more than almost the production than information technology does the consumer. Face it, Jersey pols, the people own't buyin' what yous're sellin'.

What struck me near the 2015 primary was that it was mostly jockeying for position and power, inside-baseball game politics and personal feuds. I saw little, if whatever, earnest debates over public policy or, frankly, annihilation for the people, whose state this is supposed to exist. I did come across, all the same, way also much grudge settling.

This was a primary of the politicians, past the politicians and for the politicians, with, as Max noted, "Auto and contained expenditure PAC politics (blanketing) New Jersey in the absence of people power" – in other words, vested special interests and their lackeys and bag men.

Nobody door belled my neighborhood. No entrada literature showed up in my mailbox. No ads were seen on the Internet or heard on radio. How motivating is that?

Furthermore, well over one-half of the state's registered voters, independents or unaffiliated voters, were left out of it altogether. Since only party-affiliated voters can participate in either the Republican or Democratic races, they have no place to get and nobody to get with. That must stop.

Information technology's time to end registering by party and the chokehold parties have on the primary process. Replace the electric current system with a wide-open, blanket main where there is merely one ballot for all voters, party-affiliated or not, with the acme two finishers for each office advancing to the general election.

Yes, I know that ways that I can vote for a Republican in this race, a Democrat in that race and an independent in another race and that two Democrats or ii Republicans could advance to the full general for the same role and that independent voters could conceivably make the departure in the nomination procedure, but I would rather take that than the organisation nosotros take now, which I regard equally not just un, simply anti-democratic and corrupt.

Permit the people decide who should be on the ballot, not the politicians or the parties. Ditch the antiquated nominating-petition and awarding-the-line systems in favor of a candidate-driven process where anyone who wants to run for office tin can practise and then by filling out some paperwork, paying a nominal fee and then having their name appear on the ballot with whatever party designation, or lack thereof, they wish.

I would likewise make equally many races as possible non-partisan in nature, especially at the county level and below. Pothole repair, snow removal and educational activity children how to read are not partisan issues, so why must municipal and school board elections get wrangled up in pure politics with this party-backed faction against that party-backed faction?

While we are at information technology, the people are entitled to featherbed the whole shebang by self-legislating at the state, county or municipal level through the initiative and referendum procedure. I guarantee you lot, that if you had a taxation-cut or gun-rights mensurate on the election, voters would turn out in droves to either support or oppose information technology.

Let municipalities exist run past professional metropolis managers hired by, and accountable to, not-partisan city councils who are, in plough, accountable to voters. Permit being mayor be an honorary position rotated annually among elected city council members – somebody has to cut ribbons and laurels plaques – rather than kings on the brand.

We constantly hear how government should be run more than like a business concern. If then, and then structure regime similar one with a board of directors – the council – that hires professional managers and executives to run things.

Competitive, effect-based races, non petty squabbling, bring voters to the polls. In Essex County, for case, a Republican will never be competitive in and around Newark, but we still engage in the fantasy of the two-party system. Wouldn't it be better to have two Democrats with differing views on policy face off in the general thus giving voters a real pick and a reason to come to the polls?

What you lot will get from reforms like these is a manner for quality individuals to emerge as candidates without having to suck up to party bosses or cardinal committees. They will be able to get over their heads directly to the people rather than kowtow to somebody who spends part of his fourth dimension every bit a canton chair and the residue of it lobbying the Legislature on behalf of this, that or the other special involvement. That is too much tar in which a potential candidate tin find herself stuck, none of it for the edification of the country or its taxpaying residents.

You will run into real grass-roots, policy-driven, candidate-oriented movements crop upwardly everywhere because there won't exist any barriers to their entry into the procedure, which is as it should be.

Political party organizations tin still play a role, merely limited to fundraising, articulating positions on issues, turning out the vote, registering new voters and generally supporting what would be novel in New Jersey, adept regime.

You want voters to plough out? Give them a reason to. Drive the process down to their level. Give them ability and control over ballot access and the unabridged nominating process, not the vested interests, the political machines of both parties and entrenched incumbents.

In a give-and-take, take backroom crony-politics out of politics and give power to the people. Then the voters will evidence upwards, Max.

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Source: https://observer.com/2015/06/when-you-hold-an-election-and-nobody-comes-what-does-that-tell-you-about-you/

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