The Democratic primary is in full swing, and while things on the Republican side are not looking very competitive, there are some noteworthy challenges to the President. However, in New York, most will not get to have much say in how the nominees are decided. The reason is because New York State holds what are called “closed primaries.” Closed primaries are, well … closed to independents, as well as to third parties if they do not hold a vote. There are many different kinds of primaries, each with their own positives and drawbacks. Moreover, what works well in some states may not work well in others.
New York, being a “blue” state (meaning it usually prefers Democratic candidates, at least at the state level), means that Democratic primaries are often the most significant elections in terms of deciding who eventually holds political office in the state. The upside of closed primaries is voters of one party cannot “meddle” in the other parties’ affairs. However, one does not need to go to the extremes that New York does to ensure that does not happen.
In the semi-closed system, party voters can only vote in their respective parties’ primaries. However, independent voters can vote in any parties’ primary. It is a nice compromise between constrictive closed primaries, and open primaries. One minor problem is the deceptively named “Independence” Party, which many people may have accidently registered for thinking they were registering to be an Independent.
The opposite of a closed primary is, unsurprisingly, an open primary. In an open primary, any voter can vote in any party’s primary. Again, since New York is a blue state, Republicans would be heavily incentivized to vote in Democratic primaries for races they know they have little chance in, such as the governor’s race. Open primaries do make sense in some states however, specifically ones like West Virginia, where Democrats outnumber Republicans, even though Republicans now mostly dominate the state’s politics.
One of the more obscure primaries that gained national attention in 2018 is the nonpartisan “jungle” primary. Currently only Louisiana and California use this style of primary. How it works is that in the primary, all the candidates are on the ballot together; Democrats, Republicans, etc, and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, go on to the general election. You could end up with an election between two members of the same party. Notably, this prevents spoiler candidates in the general election. The only problem is it is possible to end up with an unrepresentative general election contest. If there is enough vote splitting among the dominant party, it is possible to have the top two candidates from a much smaller party. This was something people worried would happen in California in 2018, but it never became a major problem.
There is no objective answer as to which type of primary is best. Open and closed, however, hurt the state in different ways. A semi-closed system is probably the safer option, though the jungle primaries quirks may not be as troublesome as people feared. Either would be preferable to the system we have now, which excludes too many people from having a meaningful choice.
Photo from Proulain via Pixabay
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In Louisiana, primaries employ a “Lockout” at the polls, for Federal elections. That is, when someone who is listed at a Democrat, for instance, comes to the polling place, we set the voting machine up so that they can vote only for a Democratic candidate. I had an incident once in which a listed Democrat insisted, “But I want to vote Republican”; and I set the machine up like that for him. I was not supposed to do that! That was my only big mistake as an Elections Commissioner.
Interesting what you say about a lesser known candidate advancing through a primary. This is exactly what happened to John Bel Edwards. Scott Angele and David Vitter were so hostile to each other that voters got tired of it. As a consequence, John Bel surged past them and won the governor’s race.
Louisiana does not have a “jungle primary”. Except for presidential primaries, it has no primaries at all. It just has general elections (which are in November for congress), and if no one gets a majority, a run-off general election the following month. However, Washington state has the same system that California has. It terribly injures minor parties because they can’t come in first or second in the primary if both major parties are running someone.