3 Elections in 2008

California State Sen. Ron Calderon is proposing Californians have 3 elections in 2008. Currently California opens the polls 2x, once in June and again in November. Senator Calderon thinks that waiting until June for California to have it's primary is too late, and not giving Californian enough of a voice since so many other states have already had their primaries.

I don't see how this fixes any problems. What keeps other states from moving their primaries to January? If the problem is that the states with later primaries don't influence which candidates will ultimately run for president, then perhaps the primary should be a nationwide election? Or let the Democrats and Republicans do an online poll? Who knows, maybe these aren't the solutions, but I don't think moving the primary solves the problem either. The problem as I see it is that too few states are having too much influence because the current system begins to weed out candidates as soon as the primaries begin. Where a more liberal candidate would do well in California, he may not do as well in Iowa. This candidate is down in the primaries, gets less funding because nobody wants to fund a loser, and therefore is out of the competition before April.

I may not have an answer (yet), but I contend that spending the money for a 3rd election is not the best answer for this problem. I think California will always have a lot of pull in politics due to the large number of people that live here, and the large number economy of our state. If this is not enough, then perhaps the legislature should find a way to allow it's elections to be moved from June to February as well. June elections already have incredibly low voter turnouts and certainly having 3 elections will further decrease the % of people voting / election. I think our politicians should be interested in increasing voter turn out, not decreasing it.

As of now, my suggestion is to have a nationwide primary and California's other voting needs should coincide with these dates.