Independent voters in Pennsylvania cannot vote in party primaries. A bill percolating in the state Senate, SB690, would create an “open primary,” one in which unaffiliated voters could vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary. It would not allow “crossover” voting, when voters who are registered in one major party vote in the other’s primary.
The state Legislature should approve SB690. It will help, in a way the parties are not helping, to reduce the move to the extremes that has made American political life so toxically divisive.
The argument against open primaries is that people who won’t join shouldn’t have a say in what the party they won’t join does. That is a good argument. But today, the primary system malfunctions in a destructive way.
Fewer than 1 in 5 party members vote in their party’s primary. Those who do are obviously the most committed — the base — and often the more politically extreme as well. The voters who choose the party’s candidates don’t really represent the whole party. The primary process drives the party, as represented in its candidates, away from the center, where most voters live. It increases the dangerous divisiveness of our political process. It helps produce the all-or-nothing, good guys-vs.-bad guys politics we see in Congress.
Open primaries would help counter this. Not completely, of course. The parties themselves must work harder to get more of their members to vote in the primaries and not leave the voting to the hardcore members. But since they’re not doing that, opening the primaries to independent voters would help.
Here’s the reason. The Democrats have a little over 4 million registered voters in this state. The Republicans have a little under 3.5 million. Independents total about 1.25 million.
A Pew study found that about 45% of those independents lean Democratic and about a third lean Republican. That means that in Pennsylvania, about 585,000 lean Democratic and about 455,000 lean Republican. (The rest, the true independents, don’t lean to either party.)
These people don’t feel comfortable enough with their party to bind themselves to it, though they generally agree with it. For that reason, they’re likely to be the most interesting and useful voters the party could have. They’re not all-in on the party line. They have different ideas about our country, what’s wrong and what’s right with it, and what can be done. They’re not as moved by the passions that drive the base.
Their votes in the primaries would most likely pull the party away from the extremes. Even if they didn’t, their votes might make their party’s candidates think twice before they bet everything on the base.
First Published: April 29, 2022, 3:57 p.m.