Well, you do have a voice... you have to run an Independent candidate. It's the fault of the IND's if they don't run a candidate. I wish *every* party would start running candidates with confidence that come Nov, not everyone will side with their own party. You've just got to go out there and put your neck on the line.
Primaries are nothing more than picking a club president to represent the rest of the club. It's unfortunate that sometimes the person chosen doesn't really reflect the majority of that club, but unless you're a member of the club, you don't get a say.
Of course, I don't think a Sheriff's race should be a partisan race, but even if it isn't it will still be a cluster**** at the end because of the number of people running.
Primaries are really nothing more than a group getting together to pick their representative in an attempt to cut down the number of candidates so we don't end up in a plurality situation. I wonder when we even started using state elections to conduct primaries because I'm willing to bet that in history, they were chosen at a party meeting, like an endorsement.
There's a hitch, Independents aren't one size fits all, so the ability to choose a candidate listed as an Independent pretty much has a slim to none chance. It's easy to say, coming from an established party, be it Democrat, Republican or even Libertarian. Plus, it still causes the cluster**** that you are talking about because the more parties you add, you end up with somewhat of the same issue as just having a non-partisan race. Actually, it can be worse.
For example, I watched the prime minister race for Curacao, a few years ago. There were a number of parties (from what I remember there were 6) with candidates running for office. I happened to be friends with the daughter of the then prime minister, Miguel Pourier, who was head of the party known as PAR. Plus, one of my other friends' fathers was running against him. It was the perfect example of insanity.
All I can say is that on a small/local level, multi-party platforms trying to do
anything is a joke. And, worse than just having a non-partisan race, you end up with the need for each candidate representing their party to tow the party line to the extent you lose the identity of who the candidate really is. That's NOT what we need in local elections.
The reason I use Curacao as an example is because it is still a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, although under the Netherlands Antilles and so the prime minister election is basically a very local one.... until they are able to establish an autonomous status under The Netherlands, like Aruba.
Again, partisan politics work more on a state and national level.
Seriously, I'd have no trouble voting for someone from any party IF I was able to choose the person that I thought was the best. I'm not "stuck" as a die hard anything.
