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Q&A
Discussion on using candidate thresholds to trigger primary elections
1:00:16
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95 sec
Commissioner Julie Samuels questions Greg Dennis about the possibility of implementing a threshold for triggering a primary based on the number of candidates.
Dennis confirms that Massachusetts currently uses such a trigger: if more than twice the number of candidates run as there are seats, a preliminary election is held. For Boston's proposal, this trigger is if more than four candidates run, narrowing the field to four for the general election. He suggests New York City could adopt a similar model, triggering a primary if the number of candidates exceeds a certain threshold (e.g., four or five).
Julie Samuels
1:00:16
Thanks.
1:00:16
Greg, I wanna follow-up on Rich's question for a second.
1:00:19
And this might be a crazy idea, but one of the things I've been thinking a lot about this particular challenge of too many candidates.
1:00:27
We have a mayoral election going on right now with arguably too many candidates.
1:00:32
And and so I'm thinking, is there anywhere where perhaps you could put in a threshold?
1:00:39
And if you have do you know of anywhere that does this?
1:00:41
You can put in a threshold, and it's like, you know, if more than seven candidates, I'm making up that number, are in the race, then you trigger a primary.
1:00:49
If you're under seven, then you have a single election.
Greg Dennis
1:00:52
Well, that's exactly what we do in Massachusetts elections.
1:00:56
We have a we have a trigger based on the number of candidates that run.
1:01:00
And if more than that that number of candidates run, you have this preliminary election today.
Valerie White
1:01:05
If you that number?
Julie Samuels
1:01:06
I'm sorry.
Greg Dennis
1:01:07
The the formula is if more than twice the number of candidates run as there are seats.
1:01:15
So if you're talking about a mayoral or district city council race where it's one seat, you're just talking is there more than two candidates.
1:01:22
Now we changed that, for Boston with our proposal, or we're trying to change it with our proposal, where, a preliminary is triggered if there's more than four candidates.
1:01:34
If there's more four than four candidates, you hold a preliminary election to narrow it down to four.
1:01:39
So you could have something like that in New York City.
1:01:41
If there's more than four or there's more than five, you hold this you call it a pro preliminary, you call it a primary, whatever you wanna call it, to narrow it down to that number.