How about randomly selected regions for a pre-primary?

[seasat]

First of all, I like the ideas of small states going first. It allows folks with little name recognition to possibly achieve a nomination. The retail politics of these states also vets the candidates. I also can see the issue of diversity and regional interests that are missed by having areas like Iowa and New Hampshire first. A solution is to randomly select regions of each state or region for a pre-primary.

Ideally, it would use demographic data that could be fed into a GIS program to break up each state into diverse voting blocks that are mostly contiguous. A random number generator would select a group of these blocks to go first in a pre-primary. The entire states would then follow in final primary groups based on population size and demographics each separated by a couple of weeks. It would preserve the retail aspect of campaigning while providing greater regional and demographic diversity. The reason for using regions instead of entire states is the cost of campaigning in a large state like California, Florida, or New York.

The two main problems with this idea are that it would require a constitutional amendment to implement and would cost more for the additional primaries.

The main benefit is that it would allow a candidate with little national name recognition to achieve some notice in time for the first primaries while increasing diversity. It would lower special interest pandering requiring candidates to present proposals with broader appeal to all regions and demographics.

By setting up the primary districts, it would encourage states to use non-political redistricting in drawing up their electoral districts without stepping on a state's constitutional right to set their own elections. It may even lead to an amendment standardizing elections and redistricting within the states for general elections.

Public financing of campaigns would complement this proposal by providing a means for determining who would qualify based on their polling in the early primary groups.

Our elections system is based on a setup where we originally had fewer states and did not have the technological tools we have now. Some states are getting angry about our primary system and throwing it into chaos. I think it's time to modernize it. Does this sound like a decent idea or am I just posterior postulating?

[LiberalFighter]

1. Rotation

[seasat]

2. If you mean by rotation, changing the regions and states order, I agree.

They'd set the regions so that there were different ones every presidential cycle until all had been included. It'd probably take decades to accomplish that. The groups of states would change until each had a chance to go first then reset it based on census data.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Yes... Maybe 6 or 8 regions maybe more

If 6 regions it would take 24 years before it started over.