Partisanship Hurts

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The recent Democratic primary election demonstrated that New York City’s electoral process is completely dysfunctional and is in desperate need of reform. In what was supposed to be a hotly contested race to decide the Democratic candidate for mayor, only 15% of registered Democrats showed up to vote. Further down the ballot turnout was even more abysmal.


Most city voters are moderate Democrats. If you look at recent mayoral races, the only municipal election that generates a large turnout, it is reasonable to deduce that the majority of voters prefer moderate candidates. So how can it be that our City Council is composed of some of the most liberal politicians in the country? This is a critical question because the City Council controls the city’s $50 billion budget and establishes all local laws.


The answer is that while these moderate Democratic voters are the most sought after voters in competitive general elections, they rarely vote in their party’s primary. They are under the mistaken belief that the most important votes are cast in November, when the only election really still up for grabs is for mayor. They do not realize that, two months earlier, a small group of ultra-left, partisan Democrats and a few motivated special interest groups already decided the outcome in every other race for them.


In a typical primary, candidates campaign to their base – the small number of ideologically impassioned, partisan voters that reliably turn out in these elections, usually called “prime” voters. In a healthy electoral system, the candidates then try to attract as many centrist voters as possible during the general election, without alienating their prime voters. The candidate who gets the most support from the center wins.


However, in New York City’s dysfunctional system, down-ballot Democratic candidates never have to shift back from the far left positions taken during the primary, never having to appeal to centrist voters – even within their own party. There is rarely much attention paid to these races and Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-to-1, making any Republican or third party challenge difficult. Essentially, a win in the Democratic primary is considered the end of the election process in most races.


This is the single greatest problem with our current electoral system.


What this means is that New York City’s mostly moderate electorate votes for a mayor that fits their politics and, unwittingly, votes for a City Council that is completely out of step with their values. The only way to begin to change this is to completely scrap our dysfunctional partisan system, and create a more non-partisan process for municipal elections.


Non-partisan election reform would create truly competitive, exciting elections where every candidate, regardless of political party, would appear on the ballot together without party labels. Most voters would then cast an informed vote based on something about a candidate that appealed to them. The common practice of stepping into a voting booth and blindly voting a party line would end.


Some critics of non-partisan elections say that voters “need” the party line attached to the candidate or there would be significant “voter confusion.” Yet New York City voters have already proven that they do not need a political party label to tell them who to vote for. Hundreds of thousands of moderate Democrats crossed party lines three times to put Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg in office.


Other critics of this reform claim it would depress voter turnout, even though it hardly seems possible that turnout could be any less than the 15% we saw recently. This is far from anything resembling a majority vote, but nonetheless determined the final outcome in most races. In a non-partisan process, which includes ALL registered voters, turnout would more closely resemble the typical general election, usually around 50%.


Still others say non-partisan elections would “destroy political parties.” There are important roles for political parties and non-partisan elections would not eliminate them. Political organizations could still make endorsements, help organize volunteers and raise money, but many of the opportunities for corruption would be removed.


The recent case involving the “selling of judgeships” in Brooklyn proves this point emphatically. How can a political party leader be able to “sell” a judgeship and, at the same time, say that the election system is healthy? Party leaders can only sell elections because they have significant control over the primary process.


A version of this idea was offered to voters in a 2003 Charter Revision proposal that was soundly defeated. Backers made the fatal mistake of choosing a year where there were no citywide, attention getting races, yielding horrendously low turnout. Again, the political establishment and a motivated minority of voters (the same partisan voters who showed up at the Democratic primary) were able to beat back a good reform that is now the norm in 80% of American cities.


The moment party labels are eliminated from the ballot box, voters will be forced to learn something about the candidates they vote for, and candidates will have to do a much more intensive job of explaining themselves to voters. Non-partisan election reform would create a more informed and less corrupt electoral process, bring hundreds of thousands of new voters into the electoral process when it counts, create a City Council that is truly representative of most New Yorkers, and, therefore, assure a more responsive and more effective government for New York City.



Dr. Golub, a dentist, runs a family practice in Queens, and is the Conservative Party’s candidate for public advocate. He has also been endorsed by the Reform Party.


The New York Sun

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