Talk:Primary election

Move to "Primary election"?

A large and probably increasing number of primaries are not partisan, which this article calls a "qualifying primary". I think "Primary election" would be a more suitable name for this topic, as it covers all kinds of primary. The only counterargument seems to be the nitpicky definition of "election" as a vote that puts someone in office. Not gonna open a move discussion yet, in case others have opinions. Toadspike [Talk] 18:31, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Reverted undiscussed move. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Either the first paragraph of the lede and various other places throughout the article should be changed, or the article should be moved back to Partisan primary. This article is equivocal on whether nonpartisan primaries are primaries. I'm not aware of reliable sources supporting this equivocation, and it isn’t explained well. There’s another problem; other articles link to the wrong primaries articles and we might consider organizing these articles to made them right. I think there are also some articles that link here to refer to multi-race ballots including ballot measures on those ballots and 1-round races on those ballots.

My main question is, should we this page move or edit it this case? McYeee (talk) 20:29, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Check the history and see what it looked like before it was modified and moved. That should give you a better sense of where it should finally land. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

OK. I took a quick look at it, but I'm not really sure what the history of the article is supposed to tell me here. McYeee (talk) 20:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@SarekOfVulcan The way to revert an undiscussed move is to move the page back to the original title, or request this at WP:RM/TR. Simply writing “revert undiscussed move” on the talk page does not revert the move. However, I agree with the BOLD move to “Primary election”, so would open a move discussion if the move were reverted. Toadspike [Talk] 21:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused by this comment taken together with your comment below. Can you explain why you support the move to primary election given that both topics are notable? Ideally, in my view, this page should be split. McYeee (talk) 01:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Since this article covers all kinds of primary elections, and receives incoming links from articles about all kinds of primaries, in the short term “primary election” is the best title for it. In the long term, it should be split into several articles. Toadspike [Talk] 08:30, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll look into splitting it. McYeee (talk) 20:01, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The talk page this was moved over

Would an admin be willing to copy the contents of the talk page this page was moved over to here? I think it provides some good context. McYeee (talk) 21:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

See subsection below. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:07, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Note that discussion continued in the subsection below after it was copied over. McYeee (talk) 01:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation

This page needs to be a disambiguation page. Partisan primaries are not the same as two-round systems; they are barely mentioned on the TRS page. In fact, TRS arguably does not involve a primary, as the first round may be the last round. A Nonpartisan primary is also a primary election. If you insist on a redirect, it should be to partisan primary, as it is the traditional and most common form of primary election, at least in the USA. Of course variation could increase on Nov 5 if AZ, CO, NV, ID, MT, SD adopt nonpartisan primaries. Philosopher Spock (talk) 09:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

PS If you have experience with disambiguation, please make this a proper disambiguation page. I could learn, but I already spend too much time editing Wikipedia. Philosopher Spock (talk) 10:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused why this is a disambiguation; it seems like it should be an article. The secratary of state of California refers to all of these as primaries in such a way as to make it seem like a single concept to her. We have an article for motor vehicle as well as both truck and car, so I'm not sure why we wouldn't do the same here. I also think that there are cases where it's more correct to link to primary election than to anything we're disambiguating. As best as I can tell, Center squeeze is a phenomenon in both IRV elections and those with primaries (all three variants here).

I suspect that whether the first round of the TRS is considered a primary depends on variety of English or where the election is held or both, but I'm not actually sure. I seem to recall TRS elections for US state offices consistently being described as having primaries by US news media but I think the Economist consistently refers to the "first round" rather than "primary" of French presidential elections.

If there is no objection, I'll make this into a stub. McYeee (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any issues with making this into a stub/broad concept article. Disambiguation was a good first step away from this title simply being a redirect, with the disagreement in the page history. From the page history, it seems like partisan primary was located at primary election until very recently when it was moved by @Closed Limelike Curves:. Natg 19 (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I generally agree with the comments here. Partisan primaries are an notable topic, but so are primary elections in general, and we shouldn’t force every link to “primary election” across the English Wikipedia to end up at an article focused mainly on partisan primaries. This splitting/reorganizing will take some work, which I will probably not have time for in the near future, but I greatly appreciate anyone who carries it out. Toadspike [Talk] 21:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

For clarity's sake and because I'm a bit dense, do you agree that Primary election should be a non-disambiguation article covering the general concept and that Partisan primary should only cover partisan primaries? I would also like to note that a large number of articles had links to Primary election until that page was made a disambiguation. Those links were mostly made to point to partisan primary, and I suspect that this was not strictly correct in a lot of cases. This adds to the cleanup work you mention. McYeee (talk) 01:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that organization makes sense. The incoming links problem you mention is what got me involved in this in the first place - before the page move from “Partisan primary” to “Primary election”, many incoming links were very jarring to readers. Toadspike [Talk] 08:32, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

3 Options

I honestly hate how the terminology in this area has gotten so confused. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

...To be fair I have to recognize I'm at least partly complicit in this. There's a tradeoff between using terms consistently and adopting familiar words that most people know. Using "primary" to mean the first round of a TRS was honestly a pretty smart move on the part of activists that I have to respect. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:29, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that whether the first round of the TRS is considered a primary depends on variety of English or where the election is held or both, but I'm not actually sure. I seem to recall TRS elections for US state offices consistently being described as having primaries by US news media but I think the Economist consistently refers to the "first round" rather than "primary" of French presidential elections.

Yep. And it gets even worse in countries with both partisan primaries to nominate candidates and a two-round system (e.g. France and Argentina). I can think of three solutions:

1. Have "primary election" redirect to two-round system and insert something like "in the United States, the first round of a two-round system is called a primary election"? (Particularly given that some political scientists have taken to calling partisan primaries a kind of two-round system.)
2. Have "primary election" be a disambiguation for nonpartisan, partisan, and two-round systems.
3. Make "primary election" into a broad-concept article.

– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:31, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a reference that there are partisan nominations before the first round of either of those 2-round systems?McYeee (talk) 20:45, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

...Really what's going on here is that California, as tech capital of the world, has decided to get ahead of the curve by zero-indexing its two-round system. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think option 1 makes sense, since partisan primaries in much of the US require voters to be registered with a specific party to be able to vote, which is extremely different from a two-round system. But if you can cite some of those political scientists you mention, I might be convinced otherwise. I think option three is best, simply because there is plenty to write about primary elections in general and turning it into a DAB would be a waste. Toadspike [Talk] 10:33, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Toadspike that option 3 is best, and I'm most strongly opposed to option 2. Option 2 It seems a little bit like having mammal be a disambiguation page saying could mean monotreme or therian mammal. That would be silly. Clearly the article on mammals is more important than the article on primaries, but I think the point stands. Unless anyone has a better idea, I suggest we call anything that the California Secratary of State would call a primary a primary. McYeee (talk) 20:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The reason I have a slight preference for a disambiguation is I think this broader definition of the term "primary" is mostly American. In other countries, the term usually describes specifically partisan primaries. e.g. in Argentina, "Primarias" means specifically the partisan primary, not the first round/"primera vuelta". – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Last time this was made a disambiguation, a bunch of links were disambiguated, almost all to partisan primary, even when that was not strictly correct. I would like there to be a valid link target for the word primaries in the phrase "California holds primaries in March", and that causes problems if the target is a disambiguation page. This is not just an issue of other articles needing to be fixed. Articles on American politics often have reason to lump the two together, for example when discussing Californian primaries in presidential election years, which wing of a party did well in primaries in which year, and differences in voter turnout in primary elections down-ballot of a presidential primary. I doubt we have articles on all these topics, but the point is that the ability to not make this distinction of important.

I think "first round" actually means first nonpartisan round and the word primary refers to whatever round is actually first. I haven't seen these definitions anywhere, but it seems to be the only set of definitions that actually matches common usage in both Argentina and the US. It also seems like the article's current inclusion criterion, except for the bit about primaries being a mostly US thing. McYeee (talk) 05:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I editing to try to get the article in a splittable state. I'm running into a couple of things? What's going on in the France section? Is this the 0-indexing 3-round system Lime's been talking about? It seems like Two-round system might be the better article. Instead of trying to split this one, should we undo my changes, move this page to partisan primary, make a stub at primary election and then remove the content of this article that doesn't have to do with partisan primaries? McYeee (talk) 06:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, France has a TRS but some parties also run partisan primaries before that, except that the partisan primaries are not required and can be uncontested pro forma votes. The section in this article isn't great, it seems to be more of a list of examples than a summary or overview, but France should still be mentioned in some way here. Apologies that I can't help with the split at the moment, I am currently preoccupied with other commitments. Toadspike [Talk] 10:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I honestly don't think that primaries and the runoff system should be combined into one page or have a disambiguation page refer to both primaries and runoffs. I suppose if you think of them in the very general sense of an election that proceeds in two stages, one could force both of them into being the same thing, but there are important differences.

A candidate can win in the first round without any runoff needed outright, whereas a primary winner will always have to compete again in the general election to actually win their seat. The voters also seem to be somewhat aware of this distinction as primary elections have consistently lower turnout than the general election that follows, whereas the first round of a runoff often has the highest turnout of its cycle. And as other people have noted, some jurisdictions with two-round runoffs also have a separate primary system before their first round.

In my opinion, whether or not the primary page is separated into nonpartisan and partisan primaries, the two-round runoffs page should remain separate from it, with perhaps a subsection at most discussing the similarities and differences on the nonpartisan primary page. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 14:23, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

If we do that we should note somewhere that special elections in California, and all elections for the California superintendent of education use the two round system, but that California calls it a primary. I think there is also a US state that has most or all of its important elections run under TRS, but which calls the first round a primary. McYeee (talk) 03:14, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Both California and Washington do this. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this stub plan. For now it seems like there's a consensus to restore this page's name to Partisan primary. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:26, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

(@Sarek Of Vulcan could you revert the revert? :p) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:28, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see the same level of consensus you do. Try opening up a formal WP:RM discussion to see if that will solidify things and bring in an uninvolved closer. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there significant content in here about nonpartisan primaries that we don't cover better in other articles? McYeee (talk) 17:17, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems Philosopher Spock and 180 Degree want to wait until after the election, so we should pause this for now. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Wait 'til after the election

I don't think we should make any major changes before the election. 7 states are voting on nonpartisan primaries; so we should have a better sense if they're spreading after the election. Philosopher Spock (talk) 10:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Changing the information on a few US states is small potatoes compared to the reorganization across several articles being discussed above. I don't know why the former has to hold up the latter. Toadspike [Talk] 11:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the relevance of that is—the fact that 7 states are voting on nonpartisan primaries seems like enough evidence of their notability on its own. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:46, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. The results will be out in a few weeks time. Why not wait till we know where it passed and where it didn't? 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 13:59, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you object to developing a consensus now, or just to changes to the article? McYeee (talk) 04:37, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Today's election day. I assume you don't want changes starting midnight eastern time tonight, but how much longer after do you suggest we wait? McYeee (talk) 23:08, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

How many of them actually ended up passing in the end? 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 13:59, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think any passed. That's what NPR seems to imply. California still uses them for all (or almost all) elections[1] and a ballot measure to stop their use for school boards in Florida failed[2]. Now that we know, what do you want to do? McYeee (talk) 03:09, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Like I said, I think the notability was already established based on nonpartisan primaries being on the ballot in 7 states (plus the fact that "jungle primaries" are used in California, Georgia, Louisiana, and Washington). – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

(and also for nonpartisan offices in other states, I think). Any or all of that does seem to establish notability. McYeee (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

It's been a month; any comments @Philosopher Spock? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2024 (UTC)