Closed Primaries, At This Point In A Race, Make The Most Sense

If you can't attend a caucus due to disability, is there an alternate way for you to participate? Depends on what state you live in. And even then, if you get to vote by surrogate, some candidate's supporters are going to question your right to use that surrogate, just because they don't like how you vote.

As usual, the complaint is only about the process that hurts Bernie, but nothing but approval for similar processes that benefit him. I know hypocrites when I see them.

Caucuses are flawed . I think states allow them in order to save money. Democratic they are not. But they allow and sanction them, so we live with it.

and parties themselves are using open primaries to defeat them. That is a failure of democracy.

but you do not get to use state resources to run your election. It is a private event, you pay for it.

That will keep both of us happy.

Also, I have a feeling this whole thought process would back fire in the general.

So since they want to run a private show, they don't get to use state equipment. It is that simple

good view of the person running for office until they are in their State vying for that position. They many times can then get a better understanding of their views and possibly see them in person before they make their decision. As far as open primaries why not. If it is not for Independents those running would not win.

THAT is the way to not disenfranchise the voters.

THAT is democracy.

I find it so strange that people on DU want to quell the vote, not swell the vote.

First time voter here, so I'm glad they point out this is how they think

and they don't want their dominance to end. Also the party is going back to it's roots. This is the 6th party realignment. So the left is truly the riff raf they want to out out.

How is it 'disenfranchisement', when independents have no right to pick a party nominee?

The points you raised in the op are true, but they have to be put against the alternative, which is a voter in a two party system not getting a fair chance to assess the candidates before voting for them.

Justify Voter ID laws. Odd how so called Democrats are using same argument to say closed primaries are only way to go because they keep out those other people.

In the debates and beyond. Also realistically the public aren't generally paying that much attention until close to their states race when the TV ads start. Sure you could say 'That's on them' but given the importance of attracting the independent vote it only ends up harming the party. If people don't feel like they have a say in the nominee, why would they bother helping campaign for the general?

If people aren't paying attention, that's their fault. I can't vote in a Republican primary, but I damn sure know what kind of frightening proposals they're putting out there.

And I certainly didn't start listening to Hillary and Bernie last week, when the ads started coming on for our primary.

The independents might be losing a chance to vote for a nominee, but we're losing the chance to gain new energized voters who might be late to the race but who could end up being enthusiastic campaigners.

It's a belief that a party should decide party business, and if people want a say, the doors are open for the genuine to join.

Just saying

not reason it cannot work in a primary.

When all of you are saying "open primaries" are you talking about all candidates running from any party are in the same primary or caucus? That would mean that Rs would be voting in the election also?

Republican and Democratic primaries are done on the same day.

In Michigan, you go to the polls and request a Dem or a Rep ballot (no one is registered to a certain party, like in many states). Personally, I do not think that I should have to request a certain ballot... my vote and preferred party affiliation is my business. All options should be on one ballot.

Since I have only voted Dem in my lifetime, I would have to suss out how other parties could be included in the process as it seems that independent leaning voters are on the rise.

they should just be Democrats first.

Democrat, Republican, or Independent. That is the way it should be. Closed primaries are voter disenfranchisement, as it prevents some people from voting.
You would think that real, actual Democrats would want every eligible voter to be able to vote. Keeping people from voting is the Republican way to "winning" elections.
Hillary supporters seem to be OK with that for some reason. Why?

Primaries aren't elections. They are party decisions that have been put to a vote.

You are voting for (or against) the candidates in the primaries elections. Also they are called Primary elections. Repubispeek doesn't change that.

There is nothing in the bylaws of this country that guarantee anyone the right to pick a party's candidate.

It seems to me that Debbie did pick the party's candidate, then Bernie came along and is screwing the whole thing up.
Too bad Bernie appeals to Democrats better than Hillary does. So much so that the DNC has to resort to dirty Republican tricks, like voter suppression, and bought off super delegates, to keep their candidate viable.

there's nothing in the law to distinguish what happens now from what happened then. Because it has been opened up to a nationwide process involving voting, it gets misconstrued as a proper election. It isn't. The use of delegates and superdelegates should make that pretty clear.

All too often the people's voice is not heard. Like when the winner, the one with the most votes, gets less delegates than the runner up.

roster of candidates you want to vote for. In fact when I did that in Iowa it had nothing to do with registration to vote - it was about voting in the primary. If you chose to jump parties you could.

My part of Iowa was very red. In order to vote for who was going to run for local offices many of us would ask for the R ballot because local offices were running unopposed. My Democratic grandfather actually ran for sheriff on the R ticket because that was the only way he had any hope of winning.

Honestly, I haven't given a lot of thought to an exact date. But there are definitely two categories. New voters can get close to the election day, but I would prefer it to be cut off early enough that the state can make sure the registrations are valid before votes are cast.

For party switching, I would want the deadline to be early enough to dissuade chicanery. Six months is on the long end, sure, but I don't like the idea of Republicans being able to switch the week before the election much either.

Do you have a figure handy?

Open primaries could be an absolute disaster .

Folks can choose to vote in both R AND D Primary, Just R or Just D or none.

It should be absolutely and 100 percent open.

you like the feeling of being in an exclusive club. Like a Country Club...or a church or religion.

Unfortunately it's not a very liberal view point. Can't brag about our big tent if our big tent doesn't allow people we dont approve of.

that a big tent provides cover for people who *gasp* actually get under the tent.

*gasp* these people are asking to come into our tent.

"I told them we are an exclusive club and I won't let them into our tent. That's why they have no say."


You should also understand that so goes the independent vote...so goes the GE. But enough with those pesky facts.

They're essentially asking to come in, use the bathroom, tell us how to decorate, and then leaving.

welcomed.

Also your point made sense when we Democrats were the majority party. We aren't anymore. We need to know which candidate the independents and other parties are interested in and there is only one way to find out - let them vote.

The Pugs ID laws, Gerrymandering, and the SC have done enough to suppress it.

I'm surprised to see a Dem make any case for it.

Cheers!

I'm inclined to agree.

Nothing surprises me any more in this forum anymore though.

These aren't even actual elections. They are primaries which help to determine the nominee of a private political party.

The private political party gets to decide who their nominee will be. Delegates could nominate a ham sandwich if they wanted to.

IMO, it makes sense that Democrats should choose the Democratic nominee.

regiatered voters can't can't vote ='suppression

No way around it

Private party event. For the record since you claim to be from California, the Green Party and the Republican Party should not have any access to taxpayer funded admnistration of elections. I urge you to close the primary here, and we the taxpayers don't fund yours either. We're cool?

Are independents in some states more important than others? The republicans won't cross over to sabotage because of their own close primary.

Open primaries early can gauge who has support from outside the party, which can be helpful. And in years when both sides are nominating someone, it's likely that few will be crossing over.

Later in the process, the variables could increase the likelihood of party crashing.

Because that's happened so many times, not.

Crossing over....lol.

Nonsense, historical it has been rare.

Suppression of votes is the only way Repubs win, we call them cheaters.

candidate should be at the head of our Party.

It doesn't make sense and it only opens a Party to rat-breeding of the worst kind.

There is no way a hybrid can ever be fair.

Just have open primaries for every state and territory with candidates from both parties competing in them. That means voters could have chosen between Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley, Trump, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Kasich. Paul, Christie, et cetera...

Eliminate party debates...

At the end the two leading candidates would have a run off...


Of course this is ridiculous, as ridiculous as letting folks vote in the primaries, regardless of what party they registered as.

Parties exist for a reason and that reason is to allow folks to separate themselves into groups and form consensuses and do political battle with other folks who have done the same.

I don't want a bunch of people from other parties mucking around with who chooses the Democratic candidate, and I'm pretty sure the GOP doesn't want it for the Republicans either.

I did see someone suggest that people could register for two parties, as they do in the UK (I think it was the UK). That makes much more sense to me - it would be inclusive and it would allow people who really do take a stance between, say, the Democrats and the Green Party, more chance to participate.

But the opportunity for mischief in a close race in an open primary is real, and it should scare people. There's a reason the rules exist. Should they be more uniform? Of course. But I see nothing wrong with asking for some shred of evidence that you really support the party on whose behalf you're making a choice for a presidential candidate.

We happen to have two candidates this year, in emotionally charged elections, who are outliers for the parties they're running for. It probably did expose flaws in the system. But it's pretty rich for Trump's kids to gripe that it's not fair that they can't vote in a Republican primary when they must have been well aware in October that they needed to register, or re-register, or whatever it is. For some reason even they, presumably well informed and with the means and motivation to make the change, didn't do it. I don't, however, see them as disenfranchised. They ignored the system.

I strongly support same day voter registration for the general election and for non-partisan primaries or other ballot initiatives, but the party primaries are a completely different animal.

Like when the GOP tried to sabotage Clinton so they could run against the 'easy to beat' Obama instead?

Voters trying to pull shenanigans isn't new, but it doesn't happen anywhere near enough to worry about it, and it backfires as often as not anyway.

Like the aliens voting in US elections or other forms of voter fraud

With administering this. You want to close them I urge you to just do it. Please. But don't ask the tax payer to find any of it. You get your own machines and all that and you rent the precincts. You know, run your own election. I mean the full enchilada. You want the state to subsidize it, MI and OR have it the right way. The former no party registration, 100 percent open. The latter vote by mail and the motor voter law.

US elections already fail to meet the standards we demand of others internationally. But have at it.

We're cool as long as state parties pay for it, 100 percent

You are kidding me right? You want to prevent a whole block of people from voting because they are not registered with a party? Then you won't need independents for the general. How do you think Obama won? That's fine. I'm sure the Republican party will welcome independents.

People should be free to vote for whomever they and not to protect the status quo. That's why politicians don't do shit for the people. They are protected and not challenged.

If you want to shut out outside influence, then get rid of super delegates and tell your candidate to stop being beholden to big money. Super delegates were put into place to keep the status quo candidates in office. That is not democracy. How's that working out?

Bernie has proven, you do not need a super pac to raise money.

God, you Hillary supporters are so drunk from the kool aid........

It has nothing to do with Hillary. It's entirely to do with my belief that a party should be able to pick their own candidate, should they want to.

matter of fact, it's kinda authoritarian with limited political freedom.

Republicans should not be allowed to come in and vote for the person they think they can beat in November. You can call them "independents" if you want, but most of them who do come and vote will NOT be voting for the Democrat come November.

I also am willing to bet that if all these so called "independents" were voting for Hillary and not Bernie, the same posters here who are so willing to "let them in to vote" would be screaming to keep them out.

This said, have your private election. How about YOUR party pays for it? By the way, so should any other party with a closed primary. Not tagging on to regular elections or using state equipment. We are cool with that. In fact, I urge you to do that in every state and territory.

regardless if you are a independent, republican or democrat and I think that's the way it should be. So your last sentence is incorrect.

sense. People get an idea they should be allowed to particpate in one of the party's primaries when the duopoly parties create conditions that make the creation of a viable third party nearly impossible.

http://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/nader.htm

<edit>

Richard Winger, who publishes Ballot Access News (www.ballot-access.org), does a formidable job of chronicling these outrages. Among the crippling provisions encountered during election 2000, consider these:

*To qualify for the ballot in Texas, a political party needed to collect 37,713 signatures in a seventy-five-day period; those who signed the petition could not have voted in the state's primary.

*In North Carolina, a party needed 51,324 signatures by May 15 of the election year. By statute, the petition has a must-carry phrase that reads "The signers of this petition intend to organize a new political party. . . ." To contemplate the chilling effect, simply ask yourself: When was the last time you signed something that would require you to commit to organizing a new political party?

*In Virginia, a candidate needs 10,000 signatures, four hundred from each congressional district. Circulators there can only petition in the county they live in and an adjacent county.
In Illinois, a new party needs 25,000 signatures to get on the ballot, while "established parties" only need 5,000 signatures.

*In Oklahoma, 36,202 signatures are required for a candidate to qualify for the ballot. With a population of 3,350,000, Oklahoma ranks 28th in the nation in population, but its total signature requirement is the fourth highest in the United States and the highest per capita in the country.

*Oklahoma (along with South Dakota) doesn't allow write-in votes, which strikes us as a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Those are just the raw number barriers. But there are also excessive filing fees, early deadlines, and administrative hurdles. For example, in Pennsylvania, the state requires signature forms on special colored paper; it only provided four hundred forms though our volunteers needed more than two thousand. The state would not accept forms downloaded from the Internet. In West Virginia and Georgia, the filing fee is $4,000! In Michigan, petition forms had to be on odd-sized paper (8-1/2 by 13 inches).

In many states, our petitioners were harassed and threatened with arrest by officials with a shallow understanding of the First Amendment for circulating petitions in public places or taxpayer-financed parks and recreation areas. In Mississippi, the mayor of Tupelo stopped our petitioners from working in the town square at a festival on the Fourth of July. In Ohio, our petitioners were stopped from collecting signatures at a public market in West Cleveland. The reports from our volunteer petitioners were profiles in courage.

Of course, the Green Party is not the only one to face this challenge. The Libertarian Party the Reform Party, the Natural Law Party, and the Constitutional Party . . . all of the third parties have to go through this charade every time they seek to compete with the established duopolists. What happens when progress is made? The Democrats and Republicans who control the state assemblies and legislatures just run back into session to make the hurdles tougher.

more...

.. in the body of the post.

I was right.

Yup private party function. Guess what? No primary during my June election. No use of any public goods, including machines or registrars. You pay for it 100 percent. Talk about entitlement. By the way this should apply to any party that decides to run a closed primary. We're good with that.

You get to run your club, and the tax payer doesn't get stuck with it. Agreed.

I suspect that once state parties realize the cost, with no public subsidy whatsoever...

It's spelled out very clearly in your state constitution: The parties have the choice of an open or closed primary. Spit in one hand and wish with the other, nothing is going to change in the immediate future.

and the precedent is there.

Of course, you are acting like Mr Spanos, and the rest of the NFL

Your state constitution mandates the primary. Deal with it, or change it.



I understand Mr Spanos favors a hefty poll tax to keep the unwashed away from the polls on election day.

and trust me, the precedent is there. DEAL WITH IT, as you said. Look into why we have not decoupled the primary from the June election. The two major parties were given THAT FUCKING CHOICE as long as they paid for it, IN FULL.

So having the primary paid by the parties, in closed primaries, meets the constitutional requirement. You deal with it.

I guess people are starting to realize that folks are getting tired of the double standards, By the way since CA is actually running an OPEN democratic primary, you deal with it as well.

But I insist, CLOSE 'em, and you pay for it.

I wanted to vote for a Democrat this election. My state , PA, is a closed primary state.

So, I went to the courthouse several months ago and changed my registration to Democrat.

Simple . Easy. Everyone can do it.

There is no good reason for NY to have put the deadline for re-registration of existing voters six MONTHS prior to the primary. No justification for that at all.

We do it in my tiny northeast state, but that may put a bit of a strain on places like New York, Texas, California, etc.

You could also set it up to have same day online registration.

Close them all. The Democratic Party can pay for them. No more tax dollars towards a process that not all American's can participate in and voting is one of the most important.

Then once you have done that, y'all can STFU with your whining when you lose. We independents won't vote for Clinton. She will lose but hey y'all will have party purity and your own little special party.

Yes, oh please, yes, let's play this game out to the conclusion of said events, I relish the opportunity to laugh my ass off at the Democratic Party come November when they lose not only the White House but more seats all the way down ticket. Why should we vote for any Democrat if they are going to treat us like shit? Fuck that!

here in CA, (which leads the nation in independents) and god they are having trouble keeping the lights on.

I urge them... we agree.

And what I noticed is that once we said go ahead, close them, we ain't paying for them, they are starting to realize we are dead serious.

block of voters in the United States. Please don't cater, but you pay for your fracking party event m'kay.

that independent voters have never considered the meaning of the term, and don't know that being independent means that they are, by definition, independent of some of the party level process that goes on? If independents are so proud of being independent, it shouldn't matter that they don't get all the benefits that party members do.

Make it an exclusive member's only club. Don't ask us for money. Don't expect our taxes to pay for your club. And sure as fuck don't expect us to get in line, hold our noses, vote the lesser of two evils, and 'unify' with your asses to get one of yours elected.

Simple really.

but since you insist, I agree with you. The California Supreme Court agrees with you. I am just asking you that you do not burden the state with the running of your election. You do not get to play on our regularly scheduled June Election, (obviously not this year) and you get to run the full thing. You do understand why neither the Ds or the Rs accepted the offer from the state to decouple from the June Election, right? I know too much inside baseball, The cost. They did math... I know a thing... and it costs millions to run your primaries. The only reason the cost is less is that you happen to be on my machines, as a tax payer they belong to me and every other tax payer in the state, with silly shit like Prop I, the mayoral election, city hall. Things like that. Otherwise, your election would be through the roof. Imagine having to rent all those rooms for the precincts? I am almost betting on a caucus at that point. They are cheaper to run.

So you want a private party event run, I am sure it is time to have a nice class action as to why the voters should not fund any political party in the state, yes we are going to be nice and include all, that has a closed primary. If you have an open primary, sure come along.. we should be working to increase, not depress participation.

You can decide to inform the SOS that you do want to have a closed primary, it is after all, in the Constitution. The consequences should clearly be, that we as tax payers don't pay for it. Trust me, the Greens and the Rs will open their primary as well. It is real dollars and cents. But you want to be a private entity with your own private affair, pay for it.

You are claiming to be a private entity, fine, we both agree. Private businesses, unless they are the NFL, don't get such large subsidies. By the way, I understand why this is an impossible concept to get if you own an NFL team, or any other professional level sports team.

For the record, CA has an open primary for the Ds at this time.

needs me. I don't need them.

It is just math.

What a joke. And so is Hillary Riding Coattails.

and after the first Presidential debate decided they wanted to switch to Democratic to vote Bernie it was already too late. That is completely absurd.

With registration dates 6 months ahead of the primary, they significantly disadvantage lesser known candidates compared to encumbents and political celebrities.