I'm unable to find any real political election system based upon a bracket system. Do you know of any?

So leave parties out of it. The California system still stinks. Should the final round of an election really be between the first choice of 40% of the previous-round voters and the second choice of the same 40%, whom the other 60% would rank lower than NOTA if that option were on the ballot, just because the 40% split their votes two ways while the 60% split theirs four ways?

Have a private primary, paid for and administered by each party to give one candidate the official nod.

How is the party supposed to keep other candidates off the ballot, if it has no official existence?

You can invite anyone you want to your own private social event, while refusing to invite anyone else. Making the primary an absolutely private matter would mean that in one-party states or districts, where the primary decides the election, elected officials could be effectively chosen in a whites-only election. That's how it was done for decades when the Solid South was Democratic, until the SCOTUS said no in 1944.

here, here!

Well said....

Michale

I like the idea of checks and balances. Specifically, I like the idea of a system where one part of the government (e.g. the executive) is chosen in a way that favors two-party politics, another part (e.g. one chamber of a bicameral legislature) is chosen in a way that favors forming majority coalition from many small parties, and another (e.g. the other chamber of the legislature) is chosen in a way that favors a few independent parties.

I also like the idea of having party structure form on its own, as a result of individual choices made under the influence of institutional incentives, rather than having parties be hard-coded into the system.

So a bracket system with three winners, for example, sounds good to me for a few-parties legislative chamber.

I like the concept of a none-of-the-above vote if it acts as a a genuine reset mechanism. If a majority of patrons don't like what the Political Waffle House is serving, it makes a good case the menu ought to be revised.

How about elections organized as a bracket system? Start with an open petition phase. The top 8 (16?, 32?) gathering the most signatures move on to the playoffs. A candidate's rank in signatures determines their seeding. A first set of 4 primaries, they could be regional or general, followed second set of 2 primaries, than on to the final election (adjust number of primaries to power of 2)! If I were a political donor, I would encourage my candidate to display a sponsor logo, sized according to contribution level, emblazoned on suit campaign vehicles and all manner of public display. Vanity + the lure of advertising across multiple media platforms would do more to encourage relative financial disclosure than any law could ever hope to achieve. To those who say this would somehow cheapen our politics, I say "duh" but only in the same sense of kids peeing in a well chlorinated pool.

CW may recognize this proposal from a few years back

However, consider an alternate viewpoint..

California's Primary system ignores political Partys and relies STRICTLY on the power of the people...

It's the epitome of the Popular Vote...

I would think, in light of the 2000 POTUS election, that would appeal to many on the Left....

Just another way of looking at it... :D

Michale

If I were dictator, there would be a rule that runoff elections have to include a none-of-the-above option. Maybe I would have it as a rule for all runoffs, but at least whenever the candidates in the runoff don't have some specified supermajority. (I would be a really weird dictator, confining my dictates to subjects that interest me, like meta-rules governing the rules of elections.)