Voters Want Progress. The Parties Want Control

Advocates for closed primaries believe that political parties should be allowed to limit participation to registered party members. Their logic is…logical. Why should Elks Club Members have a say in Rotary Club Business?

But Americans are looking for ways to make our country better, logical or otherwise. They don’t care about the self-serving rules and arguments that the two-party cartel has set up to keep us siloed. They want to vote. They want to impact. They want to be heard.

So let’s dive deeper into what is really going on in states that legally bar independents from voting. It’s wild!

Open Primaries and the Independent Voter Project conducted a poll in early July of 1400 registered Democrats in New York City. We asked them a simple question: “Why did you decide to register to vote as a Democrat?”

The answers will astound you.

48% said that they registered to vote as a Democrat because they are a proud member of the Democratic Party, or because they usually vote Democratic, and so it made sense to join the party. 39% said I’m not a Democrat, I’m an independent; I registered to vote Democrat to be able to vote in primaries. The remaining 13% were either Republicans or unsure.

Almost half of Democrats in New York City…are not Democrats.

If the goal is to ensure that only party members are involved in selecting party nominees, then the closed system is a complete failure. Hundreds of thousands of independents have registered as Democrats simply because they want a say in who will represent them.

And New York is not an anomaly.

I was talking with my friend Joe Kirby about these numbers, and he brought me up to speed on what’s happening in real time in South Dakota. Joe is a lifelong Republican, a conservative businessman, and a staunch advocate for nonpartisan primaries. We’ve worked together for a decade to advance the open primary conversation in the Mt. Rushmore State - and we both have the scars to show for it.

The South Dakota GOP primary for Governor was on June 2. No candidate cleared 35%, so a runoff was held on July 28 to decide the winner. Between June 3 and July 13 - the deadline to change your registration - thousands of South Dakota independents and Democrats changed their voter registration to Republican in order to vote in the runoff, which is the de facto General Election.

“They didn’t suddenly become Republicans,” Joe told me. “They simply wanted a meaningful voice in choosing the person who will likely become South Dakota’s next governor. And the biggest lesson isn’t simply who won. It is that thousands of South Dakotans wanted a voice in the election that really mattered. For one election, South Dakota experienced something resembling an open primary. Participation broadened. The winning candidate earned support from a larger and more representative electorate. The process worked much as advocates of open primaries have long argued it would.”

Both New York and South Dakota exposed that our crazy system of partisan voter registration and closed primaries forces millions of Americans to join private organizations that don’t believe in just to participate and have a voice.

And party activists claim that closed primaries keep their parties pure! It’s actually the exact opposite. If political parties want to limit membership to true believers, they should a) embrace open and nonpartisan primaries and nonpartisan voter registration. Then the only reason to join a party is that you believe in it, not because you’ve been coerced into joining just to vote.

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