Elks, Rotarians, and Both Party’s Lust for Control

When it comes to the issue of open primaries, DSA true believers like Brad Lander in New York and MAGA mouthpieces like Governor Abbott in Texas sing from the same hymnal: open primaries invites mischief and party raiding. If we let independents vote we’d get pandemonium. Democracy needs guardrails, and political parties need integrity. You wouldn’t want Elks voting in Rotarians’ elections would you?

There is a certain logic to it. Except Abbott, Lander and all their fellow partisan warriors have it completely backwards.

And now we have the data to prove it.

New polling from Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project of 1300 registered Democrats in NYC revealed something astonishing: 40% of registered Democrats do not consider themselves to be Democrats. 40%. They register to vote as Democrats simply to be able to vote in the primary election, the only election that matters in the Big Apple.

Among Hispanic New Yorkers, only 1 in 3 Democrats are actual Democrats!

The numbers are astonishing. And very revealing. When you force people to join a private political organization in order to vote in a public election, don’t be surprised if you end up with a political party of reluctant registrants, not true believers. And the “party raiding” that politicians use to scare voters away from open primaries is actually going on in closed systems! On a huge scale.

We've known for years that independents join parties in order to vote - now we have the hard evidence. But what the numbers don't tell is what it feels like to be forced by your own government to join a political organization you don’t believe in just to be able to cast a ballot. A group of us sat down with MSNOW last week to discuss exactly that.

- YouTube youtu.be

Closed primary elections are a huge manipulation. They force voters to lie to vote and exclude those unwilling to do so.

But New York and 15 other states remain entrenched, so we have to keep building pressure to let all voters vote.

I never thought anyone would write this, but Texas is hellbent on following New York’s example. The GOP now has Governor Abbott’s blessing to move ahead with their legal challenge to the state’s open system. And the Democrats are mute, as per usual. Within a year or two, Texas (arguably the state with the most independent culture in America) will have a fully closed system in which independent voters will be categorically excluded. The results will be terrible for Texas.

The political parties are private organizations. And they are incredibly powerful. They do not need government protection. If anything, we, the people, need the protection from the parties! They want to gerrymander us out of existence and keep us out of primaries, where all the action is.

Open systems that give people full access don’t invite chaos and manipulation. Party-controlled systems do. And until we pry control of our democracy from the grip of private organizations, chaos will dominate.

John Opdycke is the president of Open Primaries, a national election reform organization.