Sunday, October 4, 2015

Closed Primaries

The more and more I read about political party primary elections, the more and more ridiculous the idea of an open primary seems to me. This article made an interesting analogy that really resonated with me. The article said that forcing a political party to hold an open primary is like making a sports team let their opponent choose their starting lineup before a game. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In Minnesota, members of both political parties are trying to fight state legislature that forces them to hold open primaries (it doesn't seem very constitutional to me to force the parties to do this).


What are your thoughts on Primary elections? Do you feel they should be open or closed? Are there any benefits of an open primary that I am ignoring? 
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2 comments:

  1. Liam EcclesOctober 4, 2015 at 4:27 PM

    Yeah, I don't really see any benefits of an open primary either. It makes sense that Republican should vote for who they want the Republican nominee to be, and the same with Democrats. Of course, someone could always go change their party affiliation, and this probably happens, but it's still a deterrent to keep the party run by party members.
    If a party wants to have an open primary, there's no reason to stop them, but outlawing closed primaries seem ridiculous.
    Maybe there are some benefits of an open primary, and if so, I'd love to hear about them, but as of this post I can't imagine a reason to require open primaries.

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  2. UnknownOctober 4, 2015 at 9:43 PM

    I think open primaries are kind of beneficial, but mostly for the other party. One party could sabotage another that has an open primary by voting in a candidate that is less linked with the parties views, someone that people more willing to vote that party's way wouldn't like. So then the sabotaging party has a better chance, the other party members may vote for them. So I can see a benefit for parties with an open primary, but it seems pretty unfair if only one party in a state has an open primary. It would increase competition and the real battle during a primary, but not necessarily in a beneficial way, and only if both parties have open primaries.

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