This year marks the first that Maryland has chosen to hold its primary election in June rather than September. This gives more time for the party nominees who will officially be in the general election to get their message out there to voters, but it also means that the beginning of summer has so far been overrun by campaign ads on radio, TV and billboards. You can’t go on your daily run without passing seas of signs in front of every willing home and business. I will admit, it can get a bit tedious, and I will be absolutely sick of it by the time June 24 finally arrives. But I actually think this plethora of candidates is a good thing. Voters will have more of a choice, several shades of Democrat or Republican to choose between and, therefore, more likelihood of finding someone they really like and really believe will do the best job for the county, district or state. But I think there’s a way to expand this trend and make sure those chosen are even more representative of the people - open primaries.
A little bit of history is pertinent here. Primary elections as we know them didn’t really exist until 1968. The Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago that year and was beset by protests that turned to riots after citizens felt shut out of the process when the presidential candidate who won most of the primaries, Eugene McCarthy, was denied the nomination. People were rightly upset over the incident, and the binding primary that we now have was born (Republicans followed suit, and the states expanded the practice to other national and local elections as well). Prior to that, primaries were “preference primaries,” where the winner was a suggested candidate that the party insiders could ignore if they so chose. But until the 1910s, there was no primary election at all. The parties would hold national conventions (much like we have today) to select the nominee to represent them without any input from the public at large.
So the nomination process has certainly democratized over the decades, giving the people even more of a voice in choosing who will represent them. But the parties were never happy about giving up their control; this can be seen in the superdelegate system the DNC still uses today. It is also seen in the practice of closed primaries, where citizens must be registered with a party to vote in the primary, and may only choose from that party’s candidates in selecting nominees. This means that at least half of the eligible candidates are off-limits to that voter. In Maryland, a registered Democrat must chose a Democratic candidate for the nomination, even if he or she likes a Republican candidate more. Of course, the voter could simply change his or her party affiliation in order to back that Republican, but the stark truth is people are busy. Between work and kids’ activities and volunteering and exercise, most people don’t spare a thought to elections until the choice is imminent, usually after the deadline to change party affiliation has passed (It was June 3 this year). And voter turn-out is always low in primary elections (especially midterm elections like this one), partially because the hassle of changing parties discourages people from doing it, in which case they don’t show up to the polls at all. It would be so much easier if people could just arrive at the polls on primary day and select the candidate they like the most, regardless of party, as they do in the general election.
The closed primary system also cuts out an entire group of voters: independents and those unaffiliated with either major party. A January 2014 Gallup poll said that percentage of Americans identifying as independent has risen its highest level, 42 percent. Compare this to the 31 percent who said they were Democrats and 25 percent who identified as Republicans and you see this is a significant portion of people disenfranchised by the primary system.
Some will worry that in an overwhelmingly blue state like Maryland, an open primary system would mean that Republican candidates would never get a shot. But the results in California, which just held its first election under its blanket primary (or jungle primary) system, provide a rebuttal. California’s system is a top-two system, where all candidates, regardless of party, appeared on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters advance to the general, regardless of party. The state is as reliably Democratic as Maryland is, and yet the gubernatorial primary resulted in one Democrat (incumbent Jerry Brown) and one Republican (Neel Kashkari) candidate. The race for controller is incredibly close pending absentee ballot tallies, but Republican Ashley Swearingen got the most votes cast on actual election day. And in District 31, the first place finisher was Republican Paul Chabot, with fellow Republican Lesli Gooch battling closely for second with Pete Aguilar (as of this writing, less than 200 votes separate them). The San Bernardino Sun says that “If Gooch finishes second, it would be the second time in two elections that the district- despite a plurality of voters being registered Democrats- had two Republicans in the November election.” The 2012 election for this office also used the blanket primary system. So open primaries are not as disastrous to the minority party as some think. There is always a chance of hard-core partisans attempting to sabotage the other party in the primary by voting for weak candidates, but this happens with the current closed primary system as well. And an open primary would offset this trend by bringing in the independents and unaffiliated voters who will be voting based on the candidates’ merits and not the party interests.
The result would be more moderate candidates- Kashkari is a moderate Republican who the GOP believes is much more electable than the alternative, a right-wing firebrand named Tim Donnelly who made damaging, controversial remarks. Moderate candidates are more likely to listen to the other side, forge actual compromises and govern instead of descend into partisan bickering. After all, they would have to show how they are working for the entire district, not just the party activists. Similarly, you would see less of the flip-flopping that dogs leaders today. In closed primaries, a Republican (for example) will swing farther to the right to get the base to come out and vote and then migrate back to the center to pick up independents in the general, leading to inconsistencies in message. But in an open primary system, he (or she) would need to appeal to all voters in both races, which cuts out this swinging.
Seventeen states currently have open primaries, with 13 having a mixed primary, and their elections work just fine. And interestingly, Maryland could have open primaries any time it wanted to. The law allows for the parties to hold open primaries if they so choose, provided they notify the Board of Elections six months prior to the election. But open primaries would take away from the influence of the party machines, and however good that might be for the state, it will be a hard sell. But California showed that the open system doesn’t shut out the minority party, and that party insiders can trust the voters to choose a suitable (appealing, electable, qualified) candidate without their hand-holding. And given the benefits a more open primary system could provide, it seems worthwhile to at least make that pitch.
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