eli5 what keeps american politicians from just switching parties to get around gerrymandering?
In: 0
Primaries. Primaries are generally only participated in by the most ardent party supporters. If you kept your platform you simply wouldn’t be chosen the party’s nominee.
[removed]
Say you know a kid that kicks you every day, and calls you names, and is just all around horrible to you. Suddenly, they shows up one day, and ways to be all buddy buddy with you. Are you going to trust them?
Switching political sides is like kicking one group, and then trying to be friends with them next. The politician is untrustworthy, and therefore, not liable to get the votes needed.
The politicians that tend to win elections usully have the endorsement of the party they are representing.
Even if the voting constituency is completely not paying attention, the party officials will certainly know better and not endorse a turncoat and will not funnel party money their way for the campaign (unless it’s a bona fide change and you historically leaned towards the middle and occasionally voted cross party lines.)
And since money talks, it can be very difficult to just switch parties and win an election without the party endorsement unless you’re an extremely wealthy individual in which case you’re back to the principle of money talks.
I don’t see how switching parties gets you around gerrymandering.
Let’s say you’re a Republican, and your district has changed so that it is now majority-Democrat. If you run again as a Republican, you’re likely to lose. You could switch parties, but if your policy positions are the same, Democratic voters will reject you. If you change your policy positions, you’re a spineless coward who will say anything to get elected and that certainly won’t ingratiate you with voters either.
Either way you’re almost sure to lose a primary election to a bona fide Democrat.
Closed and semi-open primary elections. Under those rules people can only vote in their party’s primary, which ardent supporters of the party like to do. In some states you can register as an unaffiliated voter (I am) and vote in any primary but you have to declare just before you vote and you can only vote on one ballot.
So people who care enough about primaries wouldn’t be interested in switching because it’d prevent them from influencing their preferred ticket.
One of the planks of Yang’s new Forward Party is open primaries that would put everyone on the same primary ballot and send the top-5 to the general election which would be contested under ranked voting rather than first-past-the-post.
They can’t just join and run for any party they choose. You can’t just say “I’m running as a democrat” without the approval of the Democrat Party.
The opposing party isn’t going to let someone run for them knowing that they’re just an opportunistic member of the opposing party.
And the public is probably not going to want to vote for someone so obviously untrustworthy.
[removed]
Latest Answers