Let’s figure that the enrolled Ds split between the urban moderate and the suburban liberal, but there is a groundswell of unenrolleds who come into the primary to vote and nominate the conservative professor, who wins with 36% of the vote (the other two get 32% each).
Now you have a Democratic base, where 64% of the vote and close to 100% of the enrolled Democrats now have a candidate that none of them wanted.
To make the case study more interesting (extreme), half of the unenrolleds who voted in the Democratic primary for the conservative will vote for the Republican in the primary.
Play on that hypothesis. Is this right? What do the Democrats do? Should we amend the laws to prevent this scenario from happening, and if so, how?
Please share widely!
…then we fix the rules.
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If unenrolled voters “give” us a candidate that “we” as Democrats don’t want, then frankly we are stuck with him or her. We cannot question ballot legitimacy in the midst of an election cycle, no matter what.
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Then we close primaries as soon as possible so it doesn’t happen again, if there is such a desire. There is scant evidence in the literature that this is a problem in open primaries, though certainly many conservatives could be making that case in the RI-Sen primary this past week.
In NY, party primaries are restricted to those enrolled in the party. I don’t know if it is true now, but when I lived in NY you needed to change your enrollment prior to the calendar year in which the primary was held. The rules were tight, but the Democrats were Democrats, the Republicans were Republicans, and there were all these interesting little parties with cross-endorsement power that had fun influencing the outcome.
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NY made it very difficult to get on the ballot (bad) but really having party primaries wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
How about this: You get one vote per cycle. If you use it in a party’s primary then you have explicitly cast your vote in the general election for the winner of that party’s primary. Wouldn’t this keep those unenrolled voters from making so much trouble for you?
I’m hoping that’s not a serious suggestion.
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If I cast a vote in the Democratic primary, and a complete tool wins, I’ve already voted for him or her? Or, my candidate wins, and it’s revealed that s/he kills kittens for fun and profit, and s/he still gets my vote?
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And after the primary, I’m thoroughly ignored and all unenrolled are completely badgered by all candidates. (shudder)