Thursday, January 04, 2007

 

Another Call for Open Primaries

This story was on Page 1 of the St. Louis Post Dispatch Tues. Jan. 2nd.

I thought it was worth re-posting here since Rep. Boland has been a longtime advocate of election reform (Mike served two terms as the Chairman of the House Committee on Elections and Cmapaign Reform) and he is in favor of the concept of open primaries for Illinois.

Here is the link to the story. - Post Dispatch Open Primary Article

And here is the text of the story.



Supporters hope lawmakers will heed voters' wishes on open primaries
By Adam Jadhav - ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Supporters of allowing primary voters in Illinois to keep their party affiliation secret say they hope lawmakers will listen to the outcome of anumber of local referendums held in November. In more than 20 township advisory questions across the state, voters saidthey support a so-called open primary system by no less than 78 percent. The movement, spearheaded by Springfield attorney Sam Cahnman, who lost his race as a Democratic challenger for a state representative seat, was intended to get the Legislature to act. Illinois election law requires voters to choose one party's ballot in theprimary — and that choice becomes public information, something Cahnman anda number of state legislators wish to change. Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, has repeatedly introduced a measure to makesuch information secret, and he and other lawmakers have pledged to do soagain this spring. Such a move has historically met with strong opposition from partymachinery on both sides of the political aisle. "I know it's still an uphill battle despite the overwhelming public supportwe saw," Cahnman said. Supporters of changing the law cite a number of reasons. First and foremost, they say that primary participation is dampened because voters simply don't like the idea of their friends, neighbors or bosses being able to check their political proclivities at the local county clerk's office. Black and others say such information can also be used for dirty politics, such as cronyism and hiring discrimination. "We have a lot of problems in Illinois with perception that politics is not a clean and above-reproach business," Black said. "But simply put, you can't use politics to hire or fire. The courts have ruled on this." About 20 states use a variation of the open primary system. Some stateshave seen court challenges to such rules. Arguments for keeping the current system include the idea that it keepsvoters honest and would potentially stop one party pulling ballots for theother, just to vote for the weaker candidate. But some experts say that's largely a myth. Chris Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois atSpringfield, called it more of an "urban legend" and offered a different reason why changes to the primary structure typically fail."Political parties need that information," Mooney said. "The party peopleand the people running for office can go down to the county courthouse andget a list of their voters. It helps them strategize. "Black himself has used such lists as a precinct committeeman to get voters to the polls. But he still thinks it's time for a change. "It's just an anachronism," Black said. "Why do we need to do it?"

by Adam.Jadhav@post-dispatch.com 618-659-3637


Comments:
The question of open primaries doesn't seem terribly complex to me, but perhaps I am taking the simplistic view that ANYTHING we can do to increase voter participation is good.
The parties are the one's who object, since open primaries would make it slightly harder to ID who to target with mail before the primary. In the end they would still be able to access lists of who voted in the primary, but they wouldn't know which party's ballot a voter pulled.
So would you believe that the real debate is about money?
It would cost campaigns more to mail to all likely primary voters rather than just the primary voters who take their party's ballot, but I'm thinking it would lead to a side benefit - less polarized voting pools in the primary.
The old "standby" is that Dems run to the left and R's run to the right in the Primary, before appealing to more mainstream voters in the General Election. Campaigns are often designed to "come back to the middle" after a contested primary.
If political types couldn't tailor more extreme messages to appeal to "party" activists, it might mean we get more mainstream candidates, with less pandering to fringe groups on either extreme of the political spectrum.
How's THAT going to be bad?
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?