I completely understand why local, state, and the federal governments bear the cost of conducting elections. That makes all the sense in the world.
Why do governments bear the cost of partisan primaries?
I completely understand why local, state, and the federal governments bear the cost of conducting elections. That makes all the sense in the world.
Why do governments bear the cost of partisan primaries?
I don’t know about where you live, but the parties pay the bulk of the costs down here in Texas.
Here in Chicago elections, both general and primary, are conducted by the Chicago Board of Elections, a city department. The financial statement for the city records no payments for services from the political parties.
I’ve wondered about that myself for a long time, along with why it is that it is automatic for Democrats and Republicans to get onto the ballot, but everyone else has to get signatures and so forth. I think that the answer is, because it’s in the parties’ interest jointly to have taxpayers foot the bill, and since all elected politicians (within the margin of error) have that interest, they do it because they can.
It certainly does help keep third parties in the shadows. In effect the Democratic and Republican parties get to function as “official” political choices.
What party would give up such an advantage?