Should "Closed" Primary Elections be Forced Open?

New Hampshire's primary elections last Tuesday were open to unaffiliated voters. Nearly half of states have mostly closed primaries. Which is best?

A feature of our constitutionally decentralized election system (see Article 1, Section 4) is various voting and election procedures and systems.

Take Virginia, for example. People do not register to vote by party, which is true for 17 other states. The major parties devise their manner of nominating candidates. Democrats opt for open primaries, while Republicans opt for “firehouse” or “drive-by” primaries, where partisans gather to hear speeches and cast ballots. It is possible to participate in both party’s nominating processes, but there’s not much evidence that people do that.

To complicate matters, Virginia Republicans feature “ranked-choice voting,” allowing voters to “rank” the order of their preferred candidates. More about that here. Maine and Alaska are the only states applying it to the general election. In both states in recent years, it has tipped congressional elections to Democrats that might otherwise have won by GOP candidates. There are concerns that it may violate several constitutional provisions, but lower courts thus far have said no.

But this week’s New Hampshire primary featured “semi-open” primaries, where unaffiliated voters could choose which party’s primary in which to vote. Since the Democratic primary was practically meaningless, unaffiliated mostly voted in the GOP primary. About 70 percent of the roughly 44 percent of people voting in the GOP primary were independents supporting Nikki Haley. Donald Trump won anyway, by double digits, on the strength of actual, registered Republicans voting in their primary.

The next major primary state is Haley’s home state of South Carolina. It features an open primary. Democrats hold theirs on February 3, Republicans three weeks later on February 24. You can vote in one but not both primaries. Palmetto State voters, like Virginians, do not register by party.

Twenty-three states have some form of “closed” presidential primaries, although, in eight of those states, Democrats allow independents to participate. There is now a movement led by the organization “Open Primaries” to force them all to be open. They have many state affiliates, including Pennsylvania, Idaho, Florida, and Oklahoma.

The 501(c)4 non-profit political advocacy group (donations are not tax-deductible) is staffed and funded by left-leaning organizations, according to influencewatch.org, an invaluable resource by the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank in Washington, DC.

Open Primaries “President John Opdycke has worked for independent and radical-left political candidates and organizations throughout his career,” reports the Capital Research Center. “In the late 1980s, he worked as a researcher for the lobbying arm of the Rainbow Coalition, a left-of-center political alliance organized by Jesse Jackson. In 1992, he worked on the presidential campaign of Lenora Fulani, an avowed Marxist of the New Alliance Party.”

“Senior vice president Jeremy Gruber has also worked for numerous left-of-center political causes and organizations,” the Center adds. “He was the president and executive director at the Council for Responsible Genetics, an advocacy group that demands restrictions on genetically modified foods and opposes genetics-based discrimination. Gruber was also a field director for the ACLU’s National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace.”

Funding sources are unknown, but they raise and spend more than $1 million annually, mostly through grants to state affiliates. And now, they’re successfully recruiting news media to support their work through advocacy journalism. The Gannett-owned Daily Oklahoman calls the push for open primaries a “growing movement.”

“Millions of voters in states like Oklahoma with primaries that are at least partially closed are shut out from voting in contested races because of their independent status or party affiliation, denying participation in elections their tax dollars fund,” assert two reporters affiliated with Lee Enterprises’s “Public Service Journalism team.” Lee Enterprise owns hundreds of daily, weekly, and “specialty” publications across the US, including Richmond Times Dispatch, Roanoke Times, Buffalo News, and Greensboro News and Record, among many others in cities such as Omaha, Nebraska; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Missoula, Montana.

The Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises describes its effort as “a 12-member team of experienced, veteran investigative and data-focused reporters to provide the industry’s most impactful local journalism.” I guess that includes pushing political agendas.

What’s going on here? Let’s consult Open Primary’s affiliate in Idaho: “Idaho had open primaries until 2010, when a faction of the Republican Party sued to close the primaries. Politics in the state has become increasingly dogmatic/partisan ever since.”

Some people don’t like conservative candidates and want to make it easier for moderates to win party primaries - especially in the GOP. Take this voter, for example, interviewed by the “Public Service Journalism Team” for the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “I hesitate to say this out loud, but the primaries seem to drive a lot of real zealots — some people who are really extreme in their views. . . So those few people who can show up for a primary really determine who’s going to be put in office. And that just kind of freaks me out.”

The Daily Oklahoman: Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn “said her recent electoral experience is indicative of the difference an open-primary system could make. Considered a moderate Republican, she survived a close GOP runoff in 2022 — winning with only 53 percent of the vote against a more-conservative candidate. But then she won 65.7 percent of the vote in the general election, which included both Democratic and Libertarian opponents. Her 747,037 votes were the second-most among any candidate for statewide office, trailing only Attorney General Gentner Drummond.”

The organization Oklahomans United for Progress wants to put an open primary proposition on the ballot, perhaps by 2026. But only some people are persuaded it will make a difference. The head of the University of Tulsa’s political science department, Matt Hindman, is not one of them: “If you’re looking to undermine the authority of party leaders, open primaries are a mildly effective way to do that. . .If Oklahoma implements an open primary, are we going to see a big difference in the type of candidates that emerge? At the margins, maybe it could lead to different types of candidates. The evidence I see is that this won’t be the cure-all they think it will be.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch: “State Sen. Nathan Dahm, chair of the Oklahoma GOP, said he adamantly opposes open primaries because political parties are private organizations with specific ideals that should be able to decide who participates in their affairs — primary elections included.

"You don't want the out-of-town atheist coming in and voting on who your next pastor should be in your church," Dahm said.

Dahm said no requirements force a person to vote in a primary. In fact, he said, most registered voters don't participate. And many citizens aren't even registered to vote.

"The purpose of the primary is for the party to determine who they want to be their nominee," Dahm said.

While the “out-of-town atheist” analogy isn’t one I’d use, he has a point. What’s the role and purpose of parties, and why should a growing legion of independent voters - now outnumbering registered partisans in many states - have a say in a party’s primary election?

Open primaries may help parties nominate candidates more acceptable to a broader swath of voters, as Osborn illustrates above. But what’s the point of having a political party if non-party members dilute their say in nominating a candidate? People are free to join political parties and advocate for the policies and candidates they support, and mobilize allies to join them.

It strikes me as rich that people unhappy with a party’s nominee won’t roll up their sleeves, work for alternatives, and whine when they don’t get their way. And if they don’t want to be a party member, that’s fine; don’t expect a role in the nomination process. You still get a say in the general election. And if you live in a heavily partisan jurisdiction where primaries are genuinely determinative, it’s still your choice whether to participate.

And that’s the key - participation. As my friend, pollster, GOP strategist, and author Ed Goeas has noted, participation rates in party primaries is way down to less than 20 percent of all registered voters. That was true in New Hampshire this week. Smaller numbers of people are nominating candidates.

That’s the way democracy is supposed to work. While our nation’s framers were originally opposed to the ideas of political parties, they’re a reality and serve a purpose. They allow people to freely associate with like-minded neighbors, register and educate voters, advocate policies, and elect candidates who support them.

Yes, there are many examples of local elections being conducted non-partisanly. That makes sense for many township, school board, and city elections, where “partisan” issues are few and far between. But for federal and most non-judicial state positions, it’s a pipedream. Even in many “nonpartisan” elections, parties endorse specific candidates who welcome and rely on them.

I want my party and its candidates to be successful. Sometimes, my party nominates candidates I didn’t support and don’t think can win. I don’t have to vote for them. But I’ll remain engaged and work to do better next time. What I won’t do is abandon my party, stay home, and arrogantly demand a role in picking its nominees.

Best of all, we can let states and localities decide what works best for them. That’s democracy in action and exactly what our framers had in mind.