Difference Between Partisan And Nonpartisan Elections

In America the center beating heart of politics is elections. Without elections the whole political process would be totally different and far from democratic. Elections is where political government officials careers start and end. The fact that they are so important, means they are the most deeply focused on and criticized on their organization. This paper will focus on the debate of partisan or nonpartisan elections, and prominent voter factors. In order to understand the different ideas of how elections should be ran, and how elections are affected by the people. The main two types of elections are partisan or nonpartisan, and these elections types vary from state to state or even city to city. The difference between to two is that in a partisan election the candidates will make their party preference public and will use the party as a tool. The parties sometimes become the main force pushing a candidate' chances the victory. A great example of this would be when Orlando Sanchez was running for mayor of Houston and
The Bloomberg administration says the nonpartisan "system would draw more people to the polls, increase the number of minority group members in elective posts and weaken the iron fist of party bosses" (Hicks Pg. 1). In some nonpartisan systems the elections system has two rounds to allow people to run regardless of their party affiliation. Then the second round is the top two candidates. Which is different from partisan election systems that tend to focus on the two major parties from the start. Jacksonville Florida is often used of an example of nonpartisan where the city "moved toward nonpartisan races in the early 1990's partly to cut the costs of conducting runoff elections, which resulted frequently from party primaries" (Hicks Pg. 2). Today both systems are used but in the end, both elections solely relay on what the voters