Submitted by Sheldon H. Laskin (not verified) on June 5, 2008 - 1:35pm.
The primaries should be held on 6 Saturdays from March to June, roughly every other week. The order for each group of primaries should be determined by lottery, one year prior to the first scheduled primary. That way all the states have an equal chance to be in the first group of states.
The problem with this is, like so much of our presidential election procedures, the states control the scheduling of primaries, subject only to sanctions by the two major political parties for violating their rules. So we either have to federalize presidential elections, or somehow convince Iowa and New Hampshire to give up their long-established and long-recongized practice of going first.
Reforming the Primaries
The primaries should be held on 6 Saturdays from March to June, roughly every other week. The order for each group of primaries should be determined by lottery, one year prior to the first scheduled primary. That way all the states have an equal chance to be in the first group of states.
The problem with this is, like so much of our presidential election procedures, the states control the scheduling of primaries, subject only to sanctions by the two major political parties for violating their rules. So we either have to federalize presidential elections, or somehow convince Iowa and New Hampshire to give up their long-established and long-recongized practice of going first.