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Comment by mycologos | Hacker News Reader

> Iowa has enshrined in its laws that it must have the first primaries in the US

I'm confused, how can a single state unilaterally require that its primary is the earliest in the nation? What's to prevent another state from passing a law that its primary must be one day before Iowa's?

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If another state scheduled their's ahead of Iowa's, Iowa's state officials would be legally required to reschedule Iowa's ahead of this other state's.

It would be super fun if another state passed a similar law.

Infinite corecursion!

[edit] apparently corecursion isn't the correct term for when two functions call each other recursively? I thought there was a term for it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_recursion

Thanks!

is it bad of me that I want this to happen to end the madness. I can just imagine Iowa trying to sue another state for doing this.

I want this to happen too

They wouldn't have to. At the national conventions all delegates from states that go before iowa will be unable to vote by the existing rules and that limits what States would even be willing to try.

They can't stop other states from competing to be first.

Does this mean that if another state organizes a primary earlier than Iowa's primary, that Iowa will reschedule their primary to be even earlier than the other state?

This is basically what happened in 2008.

> I'm confused, how can a single state unilaterally require that its primary is the earliest in the nation?

It can’t, it requires cooperation of the other states.

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