However, a disadvantage of open and blanket primaries are voters of a party affiliation voting for the worst candidate of the opposing party thus hindering their opponent’s success. This system may be more democratic but it allows democracy to be abused by tactical voters. It could also be said that voters who elect their politicians are allocating them the responsibility of selecting presidential candidates. In the defence of the caucus system which entrusted this responsibility solely to party members, at least those members were qualified and experienced politicians.
However, we must then question the accuracy of representation politicians have. If they are clearly unrepresentative of the people in social make up, race and sex, they can’t be expected to choose on their voter’s behalf, a fitting candidate.
There are those that believe the mental and physical demands a primary election imposes on a candidate are an advantage to aspiring presidents, as it would allow them to experience a fraction of the drudgery they will be faced with if they are successful thus preparing them for their potential presidency.
However, the opposing argument would be that primary elections not only drain candidates in some cases to the point of submission, but they demand a significant sum of money in advertisements, travelling costs and labour. As this then drives up the cost of becoming a president, primaries are undermining the constitutional right that, theoretically, anyone can run for presidency. At least with the caucus system in place candidates would only have to consider appealing to party members who do not need to be so commercially persuaded.
With turnout generally low in the U.S it would be logical to believe that the use of primaries would promote political involvement. To the contrary, recent studies have found that the abundance of voter requirement in the U.S such as Presidential elections, Congressional elections, state governor, state legislator, state judge and local security officer elections and so on, have provoked a greater apathy in voters. With the turn out as low as 1 in 5, those candidates chosen by a blanket primary would not gain the mandate from the people that primary elections are supposed to fulfil.
Primary elections are also problematic in proportionately representing a countries choice for President. The best example of this is New Hampshire, a small state in the northeast; with a small population, New Hampshire could in no way reflect national opinion. To counteract this states have grouped together to have their primaries on the same day, most famously in 1988 when 21 states, largely southern, arranged to have their primaries on the same day. This became known as ‘Super Tuesday’ and aimed to elevate the importance of the larger states by making them more of a public spectacle.
This was found to have helped such candidates gain name recognition as the winners of the elections were announced in a more extravagant and dramatic way than smaller individual states. These grouped elections also gave the process a sense of momentum, when all states hold separate elections this can take longer and so enhance voter apathy. Therefore, events like ‘Super Tuesday’ do advance and so legitimise the political process in that they attempt to combat voter apathy and redress certain disproportional features of the primary system.
Primary Elections are caused by the public need for the devolution of political participation, which is more so prominent in America, a country proud of its constitutional requirement for the decentralization and separation of power. Whether Primaries fulfil this aim is debatable. If the argument for primaries says that they are a demonstration of democracy we must also recognise that they are restrictive in both open and closed form. Only blanket primaries offer choice to all citizens. So if the argument for primaries is that they give choice to more people then only blanket primaries can accomplish this principle.
The consequences of Primary elections vary. In some states such as Michigan election results saw a rise in turnout from 1996 to 2000 due to the use of primaries. It would appear that this is a positive consequence. However, the basic principle behind the ‘American Dream’ is that anyone can make a success of himself or herself if they are willing to strive for their goal, and the consequences of primary elections do support the implications that undermine that constitutional liberty.
