Right now there is a hodgepodge state by state: open caucus; closed caucus; open primary; semi-closed primary; closed with various lengths of time free to register in one or the other party.
Outside of considerations for this particular cycle, if, hypothetically, there was to be one process imposed on all states from above, which process would be best?
Is it better that members of a party decide who the party nominee should be, or that the party attracts those who are not loyal to the party, be they independents or those who have previously been or even still are members of the other party, to engage in the selection process.
Is it unfair that those who identify as independent (the largest group of voters) have barriers of various degrees to having a say in who the parties nominate?
Closed!!!
Republicans should vote for Republican nominees
Democrats should vote for Democratic nominees
Independents/Third-Partiers choose not to be a part of the two major parties.
It depends on what your goal is. If you want the parties to be “pure”, you want closed primaries. If you want the parties to be more like the electorate as a whole, then you want open primaries.
As far as political parties go, in my opinion they should be able to reserve the right to handle their nomination and membership policy as they see fit. Saboteurs ya know?
But I’ve recently read that 45% of the voting population now self identifies as independent, or no political party affiliation at all. Which is unfortunate because it leaves open the nomination process only to the extremes. So really independents only get to choose from the 2 which the major parties decided on.
imo, closed caucus is best, but every state / party should be able to decide for themselves. We should not have a one-size-fits-all federal law on the matter.
And if 45% really were truly independent, you would see independent candidates running and winning a lot of races. Most independents are actually quite partisan. They won’t vote for Ross Perot, they’ll support Clinton/Sanders or Trump/Cruz.
Political parties are private entities so whatever rules they make as to who can vote within their private voting process is up to them. However, the actual voting mechanism is supported by the taxpayers so a state should have a say in whether the voting is open or closed.
I thank my lucky stars I live in an open state where we can cause mayhem within the process.
Parties are private organizations assembling together for a peaceful purpose as protected by the First Amendment. As such, they are permitted to use whatever nominating criteria they choose (leaving aside protected class issues, etc.) The use of ‘should’ in the question ‘should primaries be open or closed’ really should be understood to mean, ‘how does it benefit the party most?’
I think primaries should be closed, allowing parties to self-define and choose their leaders. I wouldn’t expect to be allowed to weigh in on who the president of the NRA is, and I don’t expect to weigh in on who the Republican nominee is. However, parties are best served by recognizing a certain degree of fluidity in who their members are. People do change parties from time to time, and parties benefit by being welcoming of their new members. So closed primaries with limited advance sign-up (30 days, for example) best balances these interests.
A separate question is should the public subsidize party activities (such as conventions and nominating contests), and if so, should they demand a certain degree of openness in return? First, I think the public should subsidize these party activities, so as to reduce the need to find private funders who will want something in return. And second, the public should only demand minor accommodations of openness in return: that nominating contests use the party’s entire membership and not just elites, and that members of the public be allowed to join the party without passing onerous requirements.
Exactly this. I’m fine with political parties deciding for themselves what degree of openness they would prefer in their primaries. However, once they choose to use public money to fund their primaries, then they forfeit the option to exclude the members of the general public who are funding the primary.
I wouldn’t expect to be allowed to weigh in on who the president of the NRA is either, but that’s because the NRA isn’t using my tax dollars to run their election process. If they were, then you bet I’d want to weight in.
Ok, fine. I’ll put my taxpayer hat on. Now convince me. Why should I insist that parties run open primaries in return for my funding? What greater good is achieved by doing so?
Yet we have in this cycle as an example seen the core of each party being more concerned with perceived* electability, attractiveness to the electorate as a whole, than independents are who have voted on each side, who seem more interested in sending one message or another (on the D side often with enough Overton references that I really want to defenestrate some posters :)).
To my read so far Do Not Taunt’s balanced approach seems wisest. Declaring as a self-identified member of the group within 30 days or so of a primary seems like a minimal amount to be asking as demonstrating having “skin in the game.”
And I do prefer primaries to caucuses as more representative of party membership.
*Debating over whether or not that perception is correct or faulty is beyond the scope of this thread and please refrain from going there.
If anything, there should be an open national non-party-affiliated primary process. Since that won’t happen in my lifetime I’ll say any citizen should be able to vote in a primary for candidates in any party they choose.
Open. If the state runs the election, it is a government function. The state government should not have to know which party you prefer, therefore states should not ask for party preference when you register to vote (thank goodness my state does not do such a ridiculous thing). Since states should be unable to know what your party preference is, they should not prevent you from casting a ballot for whichever party you want. If the parties want to run it differently, let them foot the bill.
I’m already on record as an independent who thinks I have no business voting in a primary - although people thought I was a little nuts. Closed. And I think that a six month deadline before the primary is fine - party membership shouldn’t be a “oh, today I’m a Republican” thing. Elections happen once a year, presidentials every four, you aren’t picking a party 30 days out.
Idealistically, closed caucuses are best - but they are meaningless when you have 2000 people showing up at a site to Caucus and three hours to do it in.
Leaving closed vs. open aside for the moment, why the preference for caucuses? Living in a caucus state (at least on the D side), I find them incredibly inconvenient, and they exclude valid party members who can’t make it at the exact time of the caucus. Why is that better?
I’m not entirely sure what the point of this is. You might as well just not do the primaries and move straight to the election.
This makes sense in a system that has more than two viable parties. If we were the Bundestag, or New Zealand or even Austalia’s parliament, where there are coalitions and many viable parties* (and, for president, if we had something like IRV or a condorcet system), it would make sense to have party loyalists vote on the rosters.
As is, the primaries are the only real way to shape the sort of choices you actually get in the general election. Quite a few people vote more because they DISLIKE whoever they didn’t vote for more than they like the platform they’re voting for. At the point the general is happening, you’re essentially voting for a broad ideology.
The primaries are the real time to vote on specific issues, approaches, and ideas subservient to those two broad ideologies. Yeah, sometimes (like this year) the primaries have some broader ideological underpinnings, but primaries are where you get a (very small) voice in how you’d like issues you care about to be resolved.
It’s absolutely reasonable to not know which party’s platform needs the most fine-tuning before you get to the “broad ideology phase”. It’s reasonable to want to vote to minimize the influence of certain ideas because you feel like your broad ideology might lose; or vote to maximize the influence of certain ideas you REALLY care about, whichever party is espousing them. Our political system is not good at this in the actual, legal, state-run elections; primaries are the only place where people get that voice. And it’s for that reason that I think primaries “should” be open.
This doesn’t mean they should be legally forced to be open or closed, and obviously there are strategic benefits to both from the perspectives of the parties in question, but I feel like if I’m looking at what makes the most sense from a “the population should be able to meaningfully help shape the nation’s direction” perspective, open makes the most sense to me.
For certain values of “viable”, I’m talking about a more general sense of “viable” due to the coalition dynamic.
