Partisan Elections

Partisan Elections

In the following essay I will be talking about the disadvantages and advantages of partisan elections for state politics. I will also examine the last couple year's election results and costs. Finally, I will discuss if partisanship made a difference in the vote, as well as if a judge should be decided by partisan vote. In the next couple paragraphs I will talk more specifically about these topics.

First, let's talk about the advantages of partisan elections compared to nonpartisan elections. It makes voting a lot faster because the people can just go to either democrat, republican or independent column. They do not have to go through a big list of candidates to figure out who is the best choice, like it would be in nonpartisan elections. Another advantage of having partisan elections would have to be the free press and name recognition. These are really important in an election especially name recognition, because you want the people to notice your name on the ballot when it comes to election time and vote for you. I think that partisan elections help address issues and get the word out to the people, because the candidates have to campaign. This is good because they actually have to go out and talk to the people within the state they are running for. If this was a small town and the people of that town knew who you were and what you have accomplished while in politics, than there is a high probability of getting elected. That is why I think campaigning and name recognition are very important in state elections especially in small towns.

Secondly, I will now talk about the disadvantages of having a partisan election. First, partisan elections cost a lot more money than nonpartisan elections, because in nonpartisan elections you do not have to campaign. The voters must do their own research on the candidates and makes the voter actually think and know why they are going to vote. A bad thing about this though would be time. Not everybody has time to go out and do research on candidates, because most people work eight or more hour shifts at work and then they do not want to go out and do research. Another disadvantage would be I think there is " too much" information out there for the candidates, which ends up confusing the voter instead of benefiting. This makes it harder when coming to vote, so many people will just mark anything