UMass-Lowell released a new poll in the race to replace Niki Tsongas in the 3rd Congressional District. This is, I believe, the first poll since late April. It’s still very much a race.
Koh – 19%
L’Italian – 13%
Gifford – 13%
Trahan – 8%
Matias – 6%
Chandler – 4%
Everyone else <2%
Undecided – 27%
It seems clear that Koh’s big cash advantage is working as he has the highest support and highest name recognition. No one has an insurmountable lead but candidates with less cash on hand are going to have to spend wisely and ensure they have a deeply committed base who will turn out. It’s interesting to see L’Italian gets 19% among women but only 8% among men, while most of the other candidates are even among those sets of voters. It’s also interesting to see that Koh’s best group is 65+.
The other big news from the poll is about Charlie Baker. He has a 72/10 approval rating. Trump has a 10/80 and Elizabeth Warren has a 70/16. Baker has better approval numbers than Warren among likely Democratic primary voters! Stunning.
This is a race that would benefit from ranked choice voting.
In which case my top five would probably be L’Italien, Chandler, Gifford, Trahan, Koh in that order.
This is a Democratic Party that would benefit from actual leadership.
It isn’t that I disagree about alternative voting systems. I think less extreme and therefore more easily accomplished changes can get us most of the way out of the current mess we’re in.
In my view, the current open primary system is good for Democratic incumbents and terrible for Massachusetts voters. If Massachusetts had a viable state GOP, then the current system might work. The current reality, though, is that the Massachusetts GOP is dead and has been dead for decades. Sites like this cite about 10% as the number of voters who are registered in the GOP. Ten percent — close to noise.
That means that the Democratic nominee in CD-3 will almost certainly win in November. Thus, pulling a Democratic ballot in the upcoming primary is the ONLY way that a Republican resident can have a voice in congress.
I therefore don’t doubt that these actual Republicans (who are pulling a Democratic primary ballot in September) like Charlie Baker more than Elizabeth Warren.
I join Christopher in suggesting that the most positive next step should be to change to CLOSED primaries. While I’m in favor of making voter registration easy, I think that a registered voter should have to declare a party affiliation some reasonable (30 day? 60 day? 90 day?) period prior to pulling a primary ballot for that party. Maryland allows each party to choose whether its primary is open or closed and has a 21-day lockout prior to each primary.
In my view, one of the most effective ways to restore voter enthusiasm and confidence in Massachusetts is to allow open GOP primaries and closed Democratic primaries for some period. This would provide a way for the GOP to lure at least some of its prodigal voters back home.
I’d like to see us return to a culture where declared party affiliation is the mainstream, rather than fringe, of each party’s voters in the state. I’d like the Massachusetts Democratic Party to represent actual Massachusetts Democrats, and the Massachusetts GOP to represent actual Massachusetts Republicans.
Thank you for joining me in supporting closed primaries, but just as a point of clarification unenrolled voters may choose either ballot, but those registered by party are limited to voting in the primary of that party. Of course this doesn’t mean that an unenrolled voter who always votes Republican in practice can’t take a Dem ballot and I can certainly see that happening in situations like this. A law stating that GOP primaries are open while Dem primaries are closed could invite a constitutional challenge.
I hear you about the constitutional challenge (I assume you refer to our state constitution). In MD, state law allows each party to choose whether its primary is open or closed. If the MA constitution prohibits this, then I favor closed primaries for both.
I understand about unaffiliated vs enrolled voters. It is unenrolled voters who generally vote Republican (especially in gubernatorial races) that I referred to above. Nearly all of the unenrolled Republicans that I know say that they stay unenrolled so that they can vote in Democratic primaries. They say that they feel it’s the only way they have a voice in House and Senate races, both nationally and locally.
Actually, I was thinking about the federal Constitution, specifically that to say one party must follow one set of rules and another party different rules could be construed as an equal protection violation, but if the law allows the parties to be the ones to choose that might be OK.
We will obviously have better data in the months ahead, but there are a substantial number of voters who like Charlie Baker and like Elizabeth Warren. Both are around the same approval rating and it would not shock me to see them get betweeen 55-65% of the vote a piece in their upcoming races. That would imply a significant overlap in their bases of support. I would be really curious to see what they think and why.
I agree with this, and fear it misses the point.
I think that a great many unenrolled voters “lean Republican”. Massachusetts had a long history of preferring liberal Republicans (cf Edward Brooke) in the senate until the “Reagan Revolution” transformed the GOP into the right-wing cesspool that it is today.
I think Ms. Warren’s appeal crosses party lines, and that is an important factor in her strong support even among voters who would affiliate with the GOP if that party was still alive.
I think the anomaly in this picture is the strong support for Charlie Baker among those voters. I attribute that to a completely dysfunctional state Democratic Party. It is no accident that the GOP has had a Senate seat for just three of the last FORTY years — and that Ms. Warren defeated that outlier. Scott Brown was elected in 2010 because a completely dysfunctional Massachusetts Democratic Party put forward a disastrous nominee. It is also no accident that Charlie Baker won the 2014 election when Massachusetts Democratic Party put forward the same disastrous nominee in the gubernatorial race.
Both of our mainstream parties are deeply dysfunctional. The Massachusetts GOP is dead, and the Massachusetts Democratic Party is in intensive care.
That’s the problem here.
So does that prove a problem with the state party or that Martha Coakley specifically has limits to how far her political career can go? Remember the voters choose the nominee for better or worse and I’m not sure we could ever figure out if the result would be different if primaries were closed. The only possible relevant data point is that Steve Grossman got the 2014 convention endorsement and that is entirely registered Dems.
We just got same day voter registration and automatic voter registration and I think a closed primary with a window like you propose would be a step in the wrong direction. I also do not see how it changes the fact that the Democratic nominee in the CD 3 will likely win with between 20-25% of the vote, even if the vote were narrowed to just registered Democrats we would see that problem.
Of course it won’t make a difference in this election.
The way it improves our local political system in the long run is that it forces unenrolled voters — currently the majority of registered voters — to choose a party in order to vote in a primary. That forced choice in turn forces (or at least encourages) the parties to actually stand for something.
In the long run, the Democratic nominee in CD-3 might face a GOP nominee chosen by today’s unenrolled voters who also prefer Charlie Baker. The Democratic nominee in CD-3 might find herself elected by voters who demand that she support the party’s gubernatorial nominee.
So long as the Democratic brand is meaningless, same-day and automatic registration won’t make any difference at all. What we have today are primaries dominated by unenrolled voters. Having more unenrolled voters doesn’t help at all.
What is needed is at least two, maybe more, healthy and viable political parties so that voters are able to make a real choice.
I can see the headlines now: “Dems to Unenrolled: Get lost!” and “GOP says it welcomes all voters.”
I was talking to an English American recently. He said most English voters aren’t affiliated with a party. Of course, England has a parliament, but voters choose the parties. I think that’s what we have in the United States by default.
Though until Jeremy Corbin, ordinary party members did not play a large role in selecting their leaders. Australia is about to have it’a fifth PM in a row get selected by MP’s after an internal caucus vote.
I would counter that the typical registered Democrat in this state is closer to Galvin or DeLeo than to Elizabeth Warren, herself someone who has been members of both parties as well as unenrolled during her own voter history.
I am a progressive first and a Democrat second, there are plenty of Democrats in this state who are the other way around, and plenty more who are not progressive at all. NY is a great example of how closed primaries hurt progressives as much as they have helped them.
I would argue that ranked choice voting would actually create the multiparty democracy you wish MA had. It would empower third parties by removing the spoiler effect and make it less likely the progressive vote would get diluted in large candidate fields like the CD-3 or countless local legislative races. It would actually help make a viable party to the left of the DSC and a centrist and or libertarian party for Baker style Republicans disgusted by Trump. Both would help reduce the influence of DeLeo and other stalwart Democrats who routinely stymie independent progressive legislation.
Just to be clear, I support something like ranked-choice voting.
I also think that’s a much harder change to accomplish than choosing how we do primaries.
Not really. Maine was able to pass it twice by voter initiative. Since the majority of our states voters are unenrolled, it seems highly unlikely the legislature would vote to close the primaries without substantial pushback from the unenrolled majority in the state. Since this would change the rules for both parties, it is even more unlikely the MA GOP would be willing to go along with limiting the franchise to the folks voting for Scott Lively.
By contrast, RCV has attracted a lot of support from unenrolled voters and progressives alike. Unlike closing primaries, the movement to pass RCV in MA is real and gaining momentum every day. We would welcome your support of course, the lead organizer Adam Friedman is a fellow Somerville resident and I’m more than happy to get you in touch.
You’re painting with a pretty broad brush regarding the GOP if I understand you correctly. You seem to be coming at this with the notion that party membership won’t change and only the fringe are true Republicans and those people are voting for Lively. I understand that using 2018 candidates is hypothetical since we aren’t changing the rules within the next few days, but if people wanted to support Baker in the GOP primary and the only way to do so were to actually become a Republican it seems to me the ranks of the MA GOP would swell awfully quickly.
You are both assuming that unenrolled voters would suddenly want to join a party if forced to. Why would their preferences and behavior change just because the law has? It seems far more likely they skip primaries altogether if there is a requirement to register.
Take our own Centralmassdad for instance. Someone who we know is unenrolled and likely to vote for Democrats at the presidential level but has also pulled primary ballots for Republicans at the state level. Under the open primary system, he can vote for Hillary in the 2016 primary and Baker in the 2018 primary without having to change his party registration.
A closed primary would either serve to shut him out of one of those primaries or make party switching so easy that it isn’t significantly different from the current practice of taking a ballot from one party or the other.
In the former approach, it is likelier he either avoids primaries altogether or becomes a Democrat since we are an overwhelmingly Democratic state. This does not make the local Democraric party more progressive nor does it make the GOP less regressive, if anything, it leaves it to the Diehls and Lyons’ of the world.
In the latter approach to closed primaries, it is no different from the current system only it makes the presently unenrolled voter do more work to keep switch hitting. Likely depressing overall turnout and generating less interest for our candidates in the general.
My ideal world, recommended by FairVote, would eliminate party primaries altogether and put everyone on the same ballot. You could runoff vote that preliminary round and then move the top four onto the final round and do RCV for the final winner. This would be the only reform statistically likely to encourage candidates in both parties to appeal to the median voter. If that is truly our goal, that is the way to achieve it.
@jconway: I’m certainly not assuming they’d “want” to join a party. It might be a hard choice, and I want them to make that choice.
I think CMD is an excellent example, actually. I think all of us would gain if the GOP had a great many more members like CMD. I think that, in turn, would help the Massachusetts Democratic Party make much wiser decisions. I think there’s also a good chance that if forced to make a choice, CMD might declare himself a Democrat — and that would be a good thing.
If your actual goal is to remove parties altogether, then I’d prefer you to just advocate for that.
For the record, we know the CD3 nominee will face Rick Green, founder of Mass Fiscal Alliance, since he is the only GOP candidate. There is also independent candidate Mike Mullen whose views seem to be much more Democratic than Republican.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that closing the primaries would fix the same problems that IRV is designed to solve. These are two different concerns.
I think Tom was valiantly, but naively, arguing that closing primaries would somehow make the MA state legislature more responsive to voters and make our primaries more progressive. I see them changing very little on either front.
Ranked choice however would prevent the frequent issue of progressive vote splitting that has helped more moderate to conservative Democrats win primaries time and time again up and down the ballot. It is also a reform that would open up the kind of political competition needed to make the legislature more responsive to voters. Unlike closed primaries or jungle primaries, it is a reform gaining momentum that will likely be on the 2020 ballot and is already changing the nature of political competition for our northern neighbor.
Closed primaries are a step backwards. I usually heat support of closed primaries from far-right Republicans who complain about unenrolled “moderates” watering down true conservative platforms. Their motive is to drive their party candidates further right. I see no difference when the argument is made by the left.
Sure, if you want to continue (actually increase) the polarization that dominates our political system, if you want to disenfranchise general elections voters who would reject the binary choice supporting one of two extremes, then yes, by all means create closed primaries where the most extreme and partisan messages will often prevail, closed primaries are the way to go (especially in primaries like the 3rd CD).
But if you want to make sure a candidate was 50% or more support from voters (in a primary of general election), if you want an election system the promotes common ground and not extreme positions, or if you want a candidates to continually attack each to drive up an opponents negatives instead of talking issues, then Rank Choice Voting is something we need to look at.
As has been mentioned closed primaries and ranked choice are not mutually exclusive – I support both. I dispute your premise that closing primaries would increase polarization and favor the extremes. What I see is those closer to the center would choose which party they are closer to on balance and would be a moderating influence on the party, while having more skin in the game than simply showing up to vote while remaining unenrolled. It’s just as easy to register by party as it is to register unenrolled. Nobody is excluded from closed primaries except by their own choice.
This is Orwellian logic. Their own preference is to avoid having to pick a party which the law presently allows them to do. By taking away that choice, it is the proponent of closed primaries that would rightly invite a backlash from unenrolled voters who would now have their franchise in primaries taken away by people forcing them to pick between a binary that might not apply to them.
Unenrolled voters hail from across the spectrum, but what they have in common is an aversion to joining one of the two parties. An aversion that will persist even if open primaries no longer did.
“Their own preference is to avoid having to pick a party”?
Not the unenrolled voters I know. What I hear is “the party sucks and I want nothing to do with it.” I hear that from unenrolled Republicans about the GOP and from unenrolled Democrats about the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
Similarly … “what they have in common is an aversion to joining one of the two parties. An aversion that will persist even if open primaries no longer did” — you assume the outcome you’re trying to prove. For at least some of those unenrolled voters, the aversion to joining a party disappears when the party stands for something that they agree with.
There is nothing Orwellian about any of this. What I hear you saying is that it is “Orwellian” for an organization to want its decisions made by its members. I know of no parishes who invite non-members to set on a vestry. I know of no organizations (Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus, Rotary, etc) that allow non-members to vote on organizational decisions.
Choosing nominees is arguably the most important action a political party can take. Your argument that limiting that choice to party members is “Orwellian” is, well, Orwellian.
How is that not the same thing?
I do not see how closed primaries has any bearing on whether or not the party stands on something they agree with. The party could just as easily do that now under open primaries. That it chooses not to seems to indicate that whether a primary is open or closed has little to do with what a party professes to believe. You are just as easily presuming an outcome here without providing any evidence for it.
It does affect who participates in the selection, and generally speaking, I think we would want more rather than fewer voters participating in that selection. I do not see how we win over unenrolled voters to our side by telling them they cannot participate in selecting our candidates.
I want the people making the selection to have some skin in the organization that they’re affecting. That’s really the point.
In my view, a nomination is a corporate act and as such ought to be decided on by someone who has a stake in the organization.
When those unenrolled voters join the organization, they will change it. There is a difference between being a member of the Democratic Party and pulling a primary ballot. For those who are unwilling to make that choice, I join Christopher in wanting them excluded from the process.
Refusing to decide is itself deciding.
That goal is mutually exclusive with party primaries. If you want that to be the case, then go back to conventions determining nominees. So long as we are comfortable with ordinary voters selecting party nominees, a uniquely American experiment in intraparty democracy I might add, then we need to be comfortable with people who are neither dedicated nor active partisans making those decisions.
Party registration is a very poor indicator of political participation. My mother is a lifelong registered Democrat and my dad unenrolled in 2000 to vote for John McCain and never bothered to enroll back. They have identical voting records other than dad going for Clinton in 16 while ma went for Bernie. Neither of them have been involved with campaigns, beyond cheerleading what moderate amount I’ve done.
I see no reason why her consistent Democratic registration marks her as a more engaged primary voter. I do not see forcing my father to register as a Democrat suddenly changing his level of involvement either, other than making a 68 year old disabled man who can’t use a computer fill out a government form to continue voting in Democratic primaries. He’d go through that hassle and he has me to help him navigate it, it is doubtful many other unenrolled voters would, and even if they did, that it would really change who the party nominates and elects.
You both overvalue what party membership or lack thereof represents to most people. People vote for issues or candidates, not parties. You want the party to be more progressive than elect more progressives. It is likelier that occurs if we keep our primaries open to unenrolled voters and adopt more repesentational voting and apportionment methods.
I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree, and I fear we’re talking past each other.
In my town, declaring a party affiliation is easy.
My point is not that registration will change the voters, it is instead that registration will change the parties. I think that closed primaries would provide more incentive for the two parties to attract voters like your father and CMD.
I support more representational voting and apportionment methods. I also support closed primaries.
This was the explanation was missing in my prior readings of your comment. It does not change my own mind on the issue, but it does add clarity to what you are trying to say. I appreciate it for that reason. I still think the incentives under a closed primary would be for the two parties to ignore unenrolled voters even more, but ideally they would follow your assumption and try to make converts. Of course, there is nothing prohibiting them from doing that now.
A voter can always go with preponderance of the agreement, and yes, I WANT to force people off the fence and make up their minds. That said, some also don’t register in a party because neither is good enough for them. I’m sorry, but I don’t sympathize with this too cool for school attitude.
Party registration is a largely meaningless indicator of active political participation. Plenty of registered Democrats will vote for Baker this fall. Some of them are even elected officials who have already publicly endorsed him. That is a problem closed primaries won’t solve, and might even exacerbate. It seems to me that is a far bigger problem for the party than unenrolled voters taking our ballot tomorrow.
Um, you do know the MA primary is NEXT Tuesday, right?
Yes that was a sleep induced error. Week after tomorrow.
How many times do participants here need to repeat that there is no dichotomy between ranked choice voting and closed primaries? Bicycles are different from fish. Period.
Meanwhile, no matter who you hear your support of closed primaries from, basic statistics compellingly argues against your assertion that closed primaries will increase polarization of the electorate. Here’s why.
Parties reflect the views of their declared members. The effect of open primaries is to create an option — “unenrolled” in Massachusetts — for voters who find their party too extreme (or not extreme enough). Statistically speaking, the effect is to carve the middle out of the distribution between “very conservative” and “very liberal” (or pretty much any other dimension you choose).
When you carve the middle out of a distribution, by construction you leave behind the fringes. The fringes are literally the extremists — and that’s why our political PARTIES are more extreme.
That is also why our parties are so disconnected from the actual views of actual Massachusetts Democrats or Republicans.
And that is why closed primaries — independently from ranked-choice voting — are a good thing for Massachusetts.
This is not a fish to bicycles comparison Tom. Fair Vote persuasively argues that it really does not matter whether a primary is open or closed, what matters is how you count the votes.
Plurality elections are the lead factor that help nominate more extreme candidates since the moderate or progressive choices split the votes.
Trump won 40% of national Republican primary votes. He dominated in the caucus states which are closed to party members. Had the 2016 primary been an RCV election, he would not be President. Had the general election followed RCV, it is unlikely he would have won the electoral votes of WI, MI, or PA where the Johnson/Stein vote would have largely gone to Clinton on a second count.
Tea Party darlings largely won their challenges via caucuses or closed primaries. They also won races for open seats due to plurality win rules. Todd Aiken, Ted Cruz, and more recently Kris Kobach beat back fields where the more moderate primary opponents split the vote. This is not to mention Tea Party darling Paul LePage who was twice elected in a blueish state with less than 40% of the vote.
Your change would alienate unenrolled voters from the Democratic Party and do little to solve the problems you cited. RCV would solve those problems, and do so in a way that increased voter turnout and made it more likely unenrolled or third party voters disgusted by right wing extremism ultimately transfer their votes to Democrats.
You continue to treat this as an either/or debate between closed primaries and RCV. I support both and they solve different problems.
What problem does closed primaries solve? I still have not seen either of you come up with a consistent answer. Tom initially seemed to be arguing it would make our party more progressive and would somehow solve the plurality voting issue in the CD-3. You then both argued it would actually make our party and the GOP more moderate and less extremist. You both claim it would reduce party polarization even though it seems like it would plainly exacerbate it by limiting the role non partisan voters would play in candidate selection. It seems like a solution in search of a problem.
I want Democratic nominees to be chosen by Democrats, and GOP nominees to be chosen by Republicans. I want both parties to not have to guess so much as to who their voters are. For me at least any other argument is a side benefit.
The 2016 election is an anomaly. It weakens your case to cite it as evidence in favor of the drastic change you propose at the national level. To me, the support for Mr. Trump from the GOP is an indictment of decades of deceit and ideological bankruptcy of the GOP. Changing the voting system is going to fix that.
I WANT to “alienate” many of the unenrolled Massachusetts voters who pull Democratic ballots — because they aren’t Democrats. I’m sick and tired of a “Democratic” party that is so diluted by voters who oppose the things Democrats care about and who pull our party towards the GOP.
Democrats invest in public transportation, education, and the safety net. That’s what Democrats DO. Colleen Garry is NOT a Democrat. She has no business wearing the “Democratic” brand. Bob DeLeo is no Democrat.
In my view, you greatly over-reach the evidence you’ve presented in favor of ranked-choice voting.
You are making the mistake beltway pundits do of treating unenrolled voters as an ideological monolith somewhere in the mean. I think they tend to be voters that have idiosyncratic policy preferences that do not neatly align with the liberal down the line or conservative down the line partisan voter that tends to actively register in a party. This does not make them moderate or centrists.
Most unenrolled voters I know or have worked with tend to favor an odd mix of issues. There was one who was liberal on everything but Israel and left the Democrats over Israel but still hated the GOP. Another who was extremely pro-LGBT, anti-religious right, and environmentalist but also thought the Dems were tax and spend happy and weak on defense. Another who was part of Boston Occupy and convinced both parties were pawns of corporate America. Now we can prevent these people from participating in our selection process or we can try and persuade them to vote for us. I always opt for the latter option.
I also worked on a campaign with a lifelong Democrat from Winthrop who loves DeLeo, cops. and casinos in that order. We both happened to work for the same candidate on a DA race a few years ago, but otherwise we are on totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to state politics. Your reform strengthens the influence of his vote in primaries and my reform dilutes it. Which reform will ultimately help our party become more progressive and responsive to voters and more attractive to the unenrolled voter who hates Beacon Hill?
The people you describe should join one of the parties and try to nudge it in their direction. Everyone is of course still free to split tickets in November based on specific issues and candidates. Plus, closing the primaries would be done by state law so there’s no need to fear a backlash. Voters who insist on remaining unenrolled will be shut out of both major party primaries. The party nominees would still be well-advised to appeal to them though as they can vote in November.
That’s a pretty nonchalant way of disenfranchising 54% of the state from voting in primaries. How would that not be the majority of them? How would that not increase extremism and polarization? How would that not produce a backlash if legislators did this over the heads of the majority of the MA electorate? This is sounding more and more like a solution in search of a problem.
Those 54% can easily be enfranchised by joining a party, but it’s ultimately their decision.
The whole reason they are unenrolled is that they do not want to join a party. I do not see that preference changing just because the primary is closed.
To me, you are stuck in a chicken-and-egg loop, where you assume that closed primaries will not change the party, and rely on that assumption to argue that closing the primary will disenfranchise those unenrolled voters.
My view is that closed primaries will force the parties to be more proactive in attracting unenrolled voters. In my view, those changes will both improve the parties (both parties, but especially the GOP), and also make it more likely that unenrolled voters will ;pick a party.
I grew up in MD. To me, an open primary has always felt like the teacher was handing me an answer-sheet to the test along with the test. I think both parties are healthier in MD than they are here.
I think, in particular, that all of us in Massachusetts are suffering because the Massachusetts GOP is effectively dead. To me, it is a matter of simple math that a closed primary will cause a portion of unenrolled voters who “lean republican” to join the GOP. It will cause the GOP to work harder to attract and keep those voters.
I think the result is likely to be more GOP candidates, more moderate GOP candidates, and stronger GOP representation in Massachusetts government.
I think that will help all of us.
“My view is that closed primaries will force the parties to be more proactive in attracting unenrolled voters”
I don’t see the logic of this. Incumbents are happiest when primary turnouts are small. The more restrictions on turnout, the more predictable the result, and the safer the incumbents.
@bob-gardner: In my view, we have compelling evidence that the incumbents have learned how to game the current system to keep themselves in power.
While your final sentence may sound satisfying, the data strongly suggests otherwise. In the 2016 primary, the turnout in MD was 44.7% — almost half of the registered voters in the state participated in the CLOSED primary. The turnout in MA for that same 2016 OPEN primary was 8.84%.
If closed primaries suppress turnout, then what explains the dramatically higher primary participation in MD in 2016?
MD has a healthy GOP and has congressional representatives from both parties in Congress.
I think the current Massachusetts primary system was designed by incumbents to keep incumbents in office and in power. I think it is no accident that the “D” after an incumbent’s name means absolutely nothing in Massachusetts. I think that the open primary system helps keep both party organizations toothless and irrelevant to day-to-day governance, and I think our elected officials prefer it that way.
Finally, I have lived, registered, and voted in MD. I can assure you that it is no harder to register as a Democrat or Republican than to register as unenrolled.
The assertion that a closed primary restricts turnout is groundless — and the evidence of participation rates in states with closed primaries demonstrates that.
Two points in a huge universe of data–the epitome of cherry picking. I don’t see how you can draw any conclusions.
Google works for you as well. My two points of data are two more than we had before my comment.
According to Wikipedia, there are 14 states with closed primaries. I invite you or anyone else to offer evidence comparing voter turnout in those states to turnout in 12 states with “Semi-Closed” primaries.
Sorry to harp on this, Tom, but are you really arguing that a closed primary would increase turnout by a factor of five? Or do you concede that the Maryland turnout and the Massachusetts turnout were affected by lots of factors, and that the comparison is essentially meaningless?
@ Harping: Of course I’m not claiming that shifting to a closed primary will improve our turnout five-fold. Of course there are many factors at play.
That’s life in the reality-driven political universe. Nevertheless, we DO have data. You are the one making the claim that a closed primary will suppress turnout. I’m asking for data to support that claim, and offering two data points that argue against it.
I chose MD because I grew up there and know something about it. I’m really serious that I think data from the other 13 states with closed primaries will be valuable.
Maryland could very well be an outlier. Politics is almost the state sport.
@ Mark Bail: Indeed. I think additional evidence will improve this conversation — I just don’t have time to gather it at the moment.
Don’t they have stronger incentives to do that now under open primaries where unenrolled voters are allowed to participate? If you close the primary to registered members, only registered members will be allowed to vote. This will have the effect of making the two parties concentrate their entire primary GOTV effort on existing registered members to the detriment of engaging with the unenrolled until the general.
What incentives would they have under a closed primary to conduct expensive membership drives geared to increase their primary pool? Campaigns would have to spend twice the time and money effort to win over an unenrolled voter since they would have to first convince them to join a party in order to vote for a specific candidate. I doubt many of them would do this.
I think it’s more likely to go the other way.
Today, an unenrolled voter has no incentive to join a party, and so the party has to expend GOTV resources to get that person’s vote. In a closed primary, that same person has to join some party in order to participate in primary. That doesn’t need GOTV and doesn’t have to happen in connection with a specific election.
I don’t think it costs “twice the time and money effort”. I think that for most voters, declaring a party is a one-time choice.
I think the proof is in the pudding. While I grant you that correlation is not causation (and I don’t know which causes the other), MD — with a closed primary system — bemoaned the record “low” primary turnout of 44.5% in 2016. Massachusetts quietly predicted an 8-10% primary turnout that same year, and equally quietly confirmed the acutal 8.5% participation rate.
I’m curious about primary participation rates in the other states with open vs closed primaries.
The 2016 MA data was from our chronically low turnout, day after Labor Day statewide primary and not our March presidential primary from the same year. In fact, our presidential primary had a higher turnout than MD.
Good point. I don’t see anything in that link about the percentage turnout, though – perhaps I just missed it.
The Maryland link you provided seems to be of a 2014 GENERAL election. We’ve gone from data to datum.
@ bob-gardner: Still no evidence from you, though.
If you have better data, please feel free to post it.
Now you’re just being silly, Tom. You’ve already admitted that there are many factors influencing turnout, so the statewide statistics prove nothing. Or rather, the statistics can prove anything. Here’s the “compelling evidence” from four states for the 2016 primary elections.
Florida 24%
Kentucky 21.8%
North Dakota 24.51%
Vermont 11.45% *
The first two hold closed primaries, the last two open. So closed, good,;open, bad right? But wait! Florida and Kentucky are southern states, and there allegations of voter suppression there. Not so in North Dakota, and especially not so in Vermont. So it must be all the voter suppression that is driving up the turnout. “Compelling evidence!” “The proof is in the pudding!”
Can we all just agree that adding restictions to voting does not drive up voter turnout? It’s a ridiculous premise on its face, and directing me to go off in search of garbage statistic serves no purpose.
*This 200% MORE statistics, or if you put aside Tom’s completely irrelevant Maryland results (which have the wrong year and the wrong type of election) it is 400% more statistics.
No, we cannot all agree on your assertion. Neither you nor anyone else here has shown how writing “D” or “R” on a form when registering to vote is any more onerous than staying unenrolled.
You made the assertion, and the burden of proof is therefore on you to support it. If it is so obvious, then it should be easy to make your case.
Your bluster rises in proportion to the weakness of your argument.
The proof is in the pudding, Tom. Why don’t you test your arguments on some voters next week? Boil your cogent arguments down to a couple paragraphs, and put it in the form of a petition. Explain to voters outside the polls, how they should be required to declare party affiliation on your terms if they want to vote in the next primary. If they complain, remind them how easy it will be (if they just follow your instructions), and that their objections should be backed up by statistics..
Seriously, at a time when progressives should be fighting voter suppression, closing the primaries is just a monumentally stupid idea.
The arguments you make for closing the primaries are precisely the ones used by the voter suppressors to chip away at voters’ rights, you even parrot their argument that your reform will be good for the GOP and thus good for democracy!
Add to that Christopher’s Bilbo-ish assertion that the parties are like private clubs, so they can be as restrictive as they want, and his Citizen United-like attitude that people have to defer to the rights of corporate entities.
I’ve probably seen worse ideas on this blog, but I can’t think of one that seemed so technical on its surface, but was so insidiously undemocratic.
@ bob-gardner: More bluster, no data
It should be the party’s role to recruit membership and the candidate’s role to get that membership to vote for him/her.
Is there some kind of personal issue going on here? You’ve provided no evidence for the change you want to make to Mass election laws. ( The bogus comparison of a Mass Primary to a Maryland General Election from a different year hardly counts as evidence.) Then repeatedly demand that I provide “statistics”. I did, along with an explanation of why they were not particularly helpful.
Your response? “No evidence”. Repeatedly. I’m starting to feel like I’m dealing with Trump of Somerville.
It is sheer bullying, and feckless bullying at that, to toss off some half baked idea and then demand that anyone questioning you provide election statistics from 26 states, because you’re too busy. It’s hard to believe you expect anyone to take this seriously. What’s really going on?
@ bob-gardner: Nothing personal, we simply disagree.
You made an assertion that closing the primary disenfranchises voters. I asked you to support that assertion with data. You respond with umbrage, as if I’ve offended you by daring to disagree with something that to you is obvious.
It was obvious to the church elders in Galileo’s time that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. They got very upset when he dared to challenge something that was so apparent to them.
I don’t think it’s obvious that allowing political parties to close their primary elections disenfranchises anybody. That’s it. No more, no less.
“Now we can prevent these people from participating in our selection process or we can try and persuade them to vote for us”
Or we can force them to prioritize their own values and make choices among them. I do not agree that “inclusion” by itself strengthens the political process. Votes matter. Voting is a responsibility. A key part of that responsibility is determining what values matter and what candidate and party lines up with those values.
I find the “Boston Occupy” voter particularly representative of this fallacy. Leaving aside the nonsensical conflation of the two parties, if the Democratic Party is corrupt, then the only way to root out that corruption is to JOIN it and make the changes needed to eliminate the corruption. I strongly suspect that your “Boston Occupy” is unwilling to do the hard work that the latter requires.
I find that most of the people who argue the loudest that “they’re all corrupt” or “they’re all pawns” are the people who have invested the least effort in government. It’s SO much easier to mouth such slogans than to actually answer tough questions about policy. One of the first lessons from pretty much any town meeting is that the cranks who stand up in town meeting and talk the loudest about the town budget are those know the least about the facts behind that budget.
To me, your last paragraph makes no sense at all. I don’t doubt that “Democrat” from Winthrop has those priorities. The pathology is that those priorities completely control our state government today — and are anathema to Massachusetts Democrats.
If by loving “cops” you mean the kind of head-bashing brutality that we see in towns like Medford or Springfield, then those attitudes are more in keeping with the GOP then our party. There are towns and officials all over the state who show that “loving cops” has nothing to do with the attitudes that I think you allude to.
None of the reforms we’ve talked about here will matter even a little bit to the unenrolled voter who hates Beacon Hill. For THAT voter, I suggest that actually ending the culture of corruption on Beacon Hill is the very first and most important step (see the commentary from our own CentralMassDad).
I’d rather see us spend our political energy on throwing sand in the gears of the Beacon Hill pension-and-disability racket (among a long list of rackets) than either one of these reforms.
My whole point is closing the primaries doesn’t really change all that much about the status quo we both decry. In fact, I am arguing it will make it worse by making it harder for the Occupy activist to participate in selecting our candidates and easier for the Winthrop Democrat-a local official who is also a state and national convention delegate I might add-to continue their domination of our state party.
Ranked choice voting would have an immediate impact on preventing the all too common occurrence of progressive or minority candidates splitting the vote in local primaries. I can point to election after election where this has happened. It will happen again in the CD-3 where the insider with all the money is presently in the lead.
It would also eliminate once and for all the spoiler effect of third party candidacies and actually encourage major party candidates to cooperate with them. It reduces the negativeness of Party primaries making it easier for everyone to come together at the end since the nominee is undoubtedly the winner of the primary.
Under RCV our party does not nominate Martha Coakley in either of her runs for higher office, the GOP does not nominate Donald Trump, and nobody could argue Hillary did not win a majority and it would have made that primary far more positive.
In theory closing primaries forces unenrolled voters to pick the side they like better and work to improve it. Closing primaries in reality is a way to tell unenrolled voters you do not care about them and encourages them to stay home in the primary as well as the general. It allows existing party bosses and party activists to have even tighter control of the nominating process.
Your generation fought for the primary system with their blood at the Chicago convention and with their brainpower through the McGovern Commission. I am surprised to see people who lived through that endorse bringing back undemocratic gatekeepers like superdelegates or closed primaries.
Would you please stop offering RCV as if it is an alternative to closing the primaries?! Both Tom and I have said multiple times we support that too. In fact, if we close the primaries I could see that leading to the formation of other parties for those not satisfied with the dichotomy, then if we add RCV on top of that then those new parties won’t have the spoiler effect in the general. Therefore, if anything closed primaries and RCV are complementary rather than either/or reforms.
I have not been arguing that. Tom proposed closed primaries as a solution to several problems, I argued that RCV is a superior solution to those same problems and closed primaries would create more problems than it would solve.
@jconway: I think you’re conflating two discussions in the same thread.
I support RCV. I might even agree that RCV is a superior if it were passed here (I just don’t know, I haven’t done enough analysis to feel as though I really understand it). I’m more familiar with cumulative voting as described by Lani Guinier, and I’ve long argued that such an approach is preferable to our current system of gerrymandering.
In my view, open vs closed primaries is a different discussion (hence my fish vs bicycle comment). I disagree with you that it would create more problems than it would solve, and I disagree with you that it has anything to do with alternative voting methods.
I remind us that this entire exchange began with this line in the thread-starter:
To me, it is blindingly obvious that this observation is a direct consequence of Charlie Baker supporters voting in the Democratic primary. I view that as prima facie evidence that said primary is borked (pun intended). I don’t agree that RCV would change that result even a little bit.
I think that closing the primary would send those Charlie Baker supporters elsewhere — and I think that’s a good and appropriate outcome.
How?
That 60% approval rating is from polling registered Democrats who would still be eligible to vote in a closed Democratic primary, along with the Democratic state reps and other elected officials who have publicly endorsed Charlie Baker. Closing the primary does not force these people to leave the party.
Not just closing the primary.
I view the open primary as a significant contributor to the dysfunction of the Massachusetts Democratic Party (and to the death of the Massachusetts GOP). It is just one contributor, though.
Your link is to a different poll.
The thread-starter above includes this (emphasis mine):
In the poll you cited, Ms. Warren is at 80/10.
A key difference between the two polls is that this thread is a poll of likely primary voters. The poll you cite is silent on that question.
What it tells me is that likely primary voters are more likely to support Mr. Baker (72/10 vs 66/17) and less likely to support Ms. Warren (70/16 vs 80/10).
So … the data you have offered shows that support for Charlie Baker is stronger among Democratic primary voters than among registered Democrats, and support for Elizabeth Warren is weaker among Democratic primary voters than among registered Democrats.
Isn’t that the point I’ve been trying to make?