[SllX]

Outsiders like Donald Trump in 2016 and Bernie Sanders on multiple occasions also shouldn’t be able to come in an effectively (in the case of Trump) or nearly take over an existing political machine and transform it in their image at the low low cost of changing their party registration on a form with their home state.

You can do it too! In the State of California where yours truly is domiciled, changing your party registration is easier than changing your underwear so if there’s a particular party whose primary you want to vote in for whatever reason, that’s a thing you can just do with absolutely no cost to you whatsoever. You don’t need any buy-in. If political parties are going to be a thing, and we’ve accepted that they’re just going to be a thing for over 200 years and counting, then there needs to be some buy-in for people running under their banner and proportionate institutional influence from the leaders and rank-and-file of the organization flying that banner. Given freedom of association is a thing, parties are not going to go away no matter what you try and do to constrain them, so I’m okay with them also being a focal point around which people qualify for the ballot and secure donations and staffed time to run for office since that is what they are there for.

Real party turnover used to be higher. Parties would either fall out of favor and die and be replaced, or they would face credible risks from smaller parties and work to absorb them into their ranks by taking in the issues that energized them. Right now they’re functionally just an identity group, and that makes them both fragile and dangerous since their name still means something to voters, but their party functions do not command the premium they used to.

[maxerickson]

I don't care about what the organizations decide to do, that's their private business. The states shouldn't be offering them the ability to put up a candidate using a separate mechanism.

So for instance, in that scenario, the backup strategy is for there to be several candidates aligned with the organization that seek ballot access, and then the organization can endorse one of them to try to concentrate votes. Versus the situation now where the organization can name their candidate later in the process and ensure that votes are concentrated.

This would of course make things worse for 2024 Harris, but probably not to the extent that they would have for 2016 Trump.

[SllX]

Just so I understand because I think I might be misunderstanding you, are you against the States executing primaries on behalf of the parties, or are you against the parties gating candidates from also being on the general ticket under their name, or both?

[maxerickson]

There shouldn't be ballot access for a party nominee. I would be fine with the party endorsement of a given candidate still appearing on the ballot.

It's not a gate, it's privileged access, where organizations that pass some rule play by different rules than other candidates.

[SllX]

Ah, no, I get it now and I get the sentiment but I think this is better a case where we actually lean into the party system that has developed rather than running away from it, in no small part because it isn’t going away. I still don’t think the States should be executing party primaries or running the party registration process, but I do live in a a locality with numerous officially non-partisan offices with elections that are exactly what you describe and it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I would describe it as basically a charade.

[maxerickson]

I don't see how non partisan offices relate to what I'm saying.

I don't care if candidates are endorsed by parties, claim to lead parties, whatever, I think that it is not a net benefit that established organizations play by rules that consolidate their power, that it's worth the mess for the system to not work in that direction.

[SllX]

Okay, well candidates already have to qualify for the ballot on their own. Being the party nominee doesn't except you from all the paperwork and petitioning that is required in pretty any jurisdiction I know of in America. Even Presidential candidates already have to qualify on a per State basis, but they have large campaigns, campaign staff in volunteers in each State that are willing to go to bat for them and dot the necessary i's and cross the necessary t's. Party machinery helps with this, but is insufficient on its own.

The main reason you don't see more people running as candidates outside their Party is because of Party discipline and the sheer cost of running national campaign. Third parties can tread water qualifying for each ballot as they come up in some States, but they have no real media presence because they're not effective at creating a real presence for themselves (and it is often off-putting in the years they can, yeah, parties can get worse).

People running outside their party as independents would be putting their political careers on the line by doing so, and not because of any kind of benefit or privilege in the law that favors parties specifically; it's because by doing so they are actively sabotaging their party's chances of winning that seat and parties don't want to keep people like that in their ranks. Add on top of that that it is expensive to even try, and it's just not worth it, although candidates that can raise more money on their own can shrug some of that party discipline off when it's a case of the party needs them more than they need the party, it's still not the norm.

As far as partisan vs non-partisan offices go, the only distinction to a voter reading their ballot is whether or not the candidate's party affiliation is listed in the text box. There is no other functional difference that matters. That's why I call it a charade.