Nonpartisan Election in the United States

An election in which the candidates run with no identification of their political party affiliation on the ballot. Nonpartisan elections are most commonly used to select judges and officials at the municipal level. Movement to nonpartisan elections was part of the progressive reforms early in the twentieth century. The objective was to purge politics from local government. The reformers believed that nonpartisan contests would minimize the impact of extraneous state and national issues from influencing elections. More important, it was believed that nonpartisanship would focus candidate qualifications and eliminate the influence of party machines and local political “bosses.” Ballot access in nonpartisan elections is typically accomplished by petition. If more than two candidates file for an office, a nonpartisan primary is conducted to reduce the field to two.

See Also

Partisan Election (Judicial Personnel issue).

Analysis and Relevance

The nonpartisan approach to election has not produced a depoliticized electoral process. Rather, several kinds of patterns have emerged. First, political parties continue to dominate although they are disguised by the cloak of nonpartisanship. Parties continue to recruit and finance candidates, but not in an overt way. This is especially true injudicial elections, where candidates with previous partisan visibility have a distinct advantage. In the absence of other information, voters tend to vote for those who have established name recognition in the partisan political arena. It is for this reason that prosecuting attorneys, for example, are often sought as judicial candidates. Second, groups and coalitions perform the role of parties. These may be either coalitions that resemble those groups associated with the national parties or ad hoc independent community groups. In either case, slates of candidates are recruited and endorsed for each election. Yet another pattern is one where individual candidates establish their own organizations. Many people still favor nonpartisan elections, particularly with at-large elections used for judgeships at the state level, as a way of keeping state and local governments focused on the interests of the community rather than encouraging partisan or regional bickering. Those who oppose nonpartisan elections argue that they reduce voter turnout because parties have no incentive to encourage voting. They also see them as favoring the election of an upper-middle-class elite because without the encouragement of parties it is those from higher socio-economic situations who are most likely to vote, and they are most likely to vote for people like themselves.

Notes and References

1. Definition of Nonpartisan Election from the American Law Dictionary, 1991, California