{"id":41790,"date":"2020-03-20T22:17:18","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=41790"},"modified":"2020-03-20T22:20:15","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:20:15","slug":"why-must-we-have-runoff-elections-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=41790","title":{"rendered":"Why must we have runoff elections at all?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=runoffelections%20%232020election%20%23GOPprimary%20%23Democraticprimary&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/flynn_and_slaton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-41738\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/flynn_and_slaton-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/flynn_and_slaton-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/flynn_and_slaton-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/flynn_and_slaton.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A friend and I were chatting today about the upcoming runoff election in Texas House District 2 between Rep. Dan Flynn and challenger Bryan Slaton.<\/p>\n<p>Flynn finished first in the Republican Party primary on March 3; but he didn&#8217;t get 50 percent plus one vote, which would have allowed him to win the party nomination without a runoff election. Slaton finished second, so he and Flynn will run against each other in May.<\/p>\n<p>My friend wants to know: Why do we even need a runoff election? He said he would support ending this practice, which I mentioned to him is essentially a &#8220;Southern thing,&#8221; given that states in the South historically have required primary winners to win an outright majority, even in multi-candidate fields.<\/p>\n<p>He poses a good question.<\/p>\n<p>The House District 2 runoff will produce a hideously abysmal voter turnout. That&#8217;s the way it goes with these extended primary contests. The only folks who tend to vote in runoffs are the hyper-dedicated, the zealots. The rest of the electorate usually can&#8217;t find the time, let alone the interest, to vote in runoff elections.<\/p>\n<p>We also have at least one important statewide race to decide in the runoff: two Democrats are running for the U.S. Senate seat, M.J. Hegar and Royce West.<\/p>\n<p>Why, indeed, do we <em>need<\/em> to do this? These elections cost us all a good bit of money, but too damn few of us ever take part. A simple plurality during the primary ought to suffice.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, c&#8217;mon \u2026 <em>presidents of the United States<\/em> are elected without ever gaining a <em>majority<\/em> of votes.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=runoffelections%20%232020election%20%23GOPprimary%20%23Democraticprimary&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend and I were chatting today about the upcoming runoff election in Texas House District 2 between Rep. Dan Flynn and challenger Bryan Slaton. Flynn finished first in the Republican Party primary on March 3; but he didn&#8217;t get 50 percent plus one vote, which would have allowed him to win the party nomination &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=41790\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why must we have runoff elections at all?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18],"tags":[9205,6977],"class_list":["post-41790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-state-news","tag-primary-elections","tag-runoff-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41792,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41790\/revisions\/41792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}