on us; the Democratic Party took it to the Supreme Court and had their right to free association confirmed.

What a terrible idea. Operation Chaos enshrined as electoral procedure.

How is that bad? Standardize Ballots, no voter suppression? No keeping people off the ballot? It would save tons of money. Heck, make it mail in if you like.

who gets to participate in the choosing of their nominee. I don't want Repukes voting in our race any more than they want me fucking with theirs.

Parties have the constitutional right to decide who gets to participate in the choosing of their nominee. I don't want Repukes voting in our race any more than they want me fucking with theirs.

That does not sound democratic at all. But maybe they will change their mind now that states are no longer footing the bills for closed primaries since it is not considered fair to tax people for something that only the choose few can participate in. And since the Dems love money just as much as the Republicans (Repukes is very crass) then I am sure we will open up our primaries. Man we are a pathetic party that acts like we care about people's votes until we don't want them.

How far do we go in allowing non-Democrats to participate in choosing Democratic candidates?

In theory I prefer closed primaries because I too "don't want Repukes voting in our race any more than they want me fucking with theirs."

6 months ago I would have guessed that if my candidate were competitive or leading in the primary race in April it would be because he was doing very well with registered Democrats (who tend to be more liberal than others) while Hillary would be doing better with more moderate independents and crossover republicans. Then I would REALLY be supporting closed primaries since I think it is the fair way for a party to choose a candidate AND my candidate would be excelling in them.

Would you still support a role for republicans in our nominating process if Hillary were doing better than Bernie in open primary states?

Delegates are party selected in primaries, it goes through several steps to move up the ranks. So let's say there was a republican group called the Third Way, they could infiltrate our party over the years pretending to be democrats, supported in the general election by crossover votes and send up delegates...wait mind blown!

:p

No honestly in a caucus system you get voted in by the people, and you go through several levels. You can't switch your votes, so it would not matter if you even got through. The only way it changes is if delegates fail to show up multiple times. We have to show up a second time for our group coming up soon. In a primary it would be harder and you are still locked into your vote.

I don't mind the members of a 'club' choosing the officers of the club, as long as membership in the 'club' is not restricted in unconstitutional ways, but I respect that you have a differing opinion.

In the case of the Democratic Party and our primary voters I strongly think we should consider 'electability' (including his/her appeal to young and independent voters) in addition to many other criteria that make a Democratic nominee distinct from a republican one, when choosing our nominee. For all those reasons I support Bernie. But do not support the Democratic establishment (super-delegates) overruling Democratic voters.

Even in states with closed primaries, there is no way to stop a Republican from registering as a Democrat for the sake of mischief.

It is modified run on voting and it works well

As to the rest true, if the party closes it, and for the ones who have. PAY FOR YOUR OWN PRIMARY, simple. I do not want to pay for it as a tax payer.

It has cost us two Congressional seats where we have a majority Dem registration because too many Democrats appeared on the ballot with only 2 Republicans and it damn near cost Honda his seat to a very conservative Dem who got the votes of GOPers. It is a horrible system that lets Liebermans screw us over and over with no ability to primary them out.

by the way, the Rs have lost far more and it was their idea.

I know that some folks do not like it, but ce la vie. Overall it is working well

it is a function of running too many candidates. Say a district is 60 - 40, if the GOP runs two candidates who split the 40 about evenly and we run 4 who split the 60 about evenly then their candidates finish 1 and 2 with about 20 while ours finish 3 - 6 with about 15. None of our candidates make the run off.

first off, it does not apply to federal elections. In federal elections it is like it has always been. You a Dem run in the primary against other dems, and the Rs run against other Rs, If the dems run 4 candidates, and the Rs run two, the top Dem will move on, the top R will move on. That has not changed. It is a straight run off.

Second off in state elections, the TOP TWO vote getters move to the next stage, regardless of party. This is why it is called a modified run off system. If it was straight run off system, then you would be correct, it would split by party at the state level.

And yes, the Rs are seeing that it is working even less well for them to retake the state legislature, so we are all waiting for them to sue to go back to the old system It was, results wise, kind of humorous. And the reason why it does not work that way with the federal system are actually a few federal laws.

It has made the state elections far more competitive, so the Ds better field better candidates. Yes it is that simle.

http://ivn.us/2013/02/15/new-electoral-system-in-ca-means-more-competitive-races-data-reveals/

I admit to not knowing federal offices were exempt, though a link for that would be nice, the Daily Kos people seem to think that isn't correct. But on the other issue, I was describing exactly that. Say you have a town of 100 60 D and 40 R and all vote in the primary. You further have 6 candidates r1 and r2 along with d1, d2, d3, and d4. Now say they split the votes of their party roughly equally and there is either no crossover or the crossover roughly cancels out. Then r1 and r2 will split the 40 R votes about 20/20 (say 22 - 18) and the four Democrats will split the 60 Democratic votes about 15/15/15/15 say 17, 16, 15, 12. Under that scenario, no Dems get through in a 60/40 district. That doesn't even count the issue of turnout being more of a problem for our side than theirs.

look my mayor as an office has had this problem for years, becuase of charter. So do my city council seats, we have had a modified run off with some difference since I remember. And every time, Dems make the same mistake. (excepting with Filner but we all know how that went), The Rs get together and decide that they are going to get behind person X... fine and dandy. The dems, and they are sort of doing it again, tend to run two or three people. Yes, it tends to move to November with the top two getters. But the Rs tend to win it. Why? Not becuase the majority of the city is republican, but becuase the dems cannot get their act together and NOMINATE somebody that can compete, and just stick to one person. The risk is that if anybody gets 51 percent in June, that election is over, city charter. And this time the dems did not even nominate a soul, to be honest, The other two are truly running as independents from both parties, and the Dem party decided NOT TO COMPETE IN THE 8th LARGEST CITY IN THE COUNTRY.

Here you go, from PPIC

http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1032

https://www.nolabels.org/press-releases/california-electoral-reforms-make-primaries-more-competitive/

Anybody who has looked at this is finding this to be far more competitive, But as I said, it is actually not working for republicans as well as they expected. For the record, turnout still remains abysmal. I think that is becuase there is no trust elections. I don't, I freely admit it. I vote to sort of remain in practice, but I do not expect my vote to count as cast. And yes there are days I wonder why I bother... but so far since turnout is so lousy, even in presidential there are no lines. If there were I supposed I would do absentee, or simply walk away. And part of this is becuase more people are doing absentee, permanent. But actual voting ratios have not improved either.

Not a SINGLE STATE was even remotely changed.

Open primaries give us the best candidates, instead of this current system which gives us two evils.

I am in favor of closed primaries. Too much opportunity for malicious crossover voting by either side. This is especially a problem when an incumbent is running like Obama in 2012 or Bush in 2004.

For those who think it never happens, I beg to differ. My state, Michigan, has a governor that has been characterized as one of the worst in the country. We have open primaries. In the 2010 election, Gov. Jennifer Granholm was term limited and with the state reeling in economic recession due to the auto industry, it was fairly obvious based on polling that a Repug was going to win. Her Lt Governor, John Cherry and other prominent Democrats all refused to run leaving it to "America's Angriest Mayor" Lansing Mayor Virg Benero and a somewhat obscure Mich House Speaker, Andy Dillon.

The Republican race had several candidates including a few prominent politicians and an unknown businessman Rick Snyder. With rather widespread crossover voting with 66% of the voters voting in the Repug primary, Rick Snyder was a surprise winner. It appeared that Democratic crossover voters wanted to play spoiler by making sure the better known politicians were defeated by someone with no political history.

Well the problem was that Snyder won easily over Benero by 20 pts, as expected and the "non political" businessman enacted right to work, instituted a pension tax on previously tax free public pensions, signed a controversial Emergency manager law and others. To this day, I blame the Democratic crossover voters for ensuring he won the primary

Notice the use of the words "it appeared", etc..

And if Snyder won by 20 points, then it would REALLY appear that those crossover votes actually WANTED Snyder.


Sorry, you are going to do a hell of a lot better than assumptions.

Michigan has been a blue state for the last couple decades with Democrats winning nearly all statewide elections. We have had Dem Senators for the last several elections.

2004 Michigan went for Kerry 51% to Bush 48%

2008 Michigan went for Barack Obama 57 % to McCain 41%

2012 Michigan elected Obama 54 % to Romney 45%

Yet in the 2010 governors race, 66 % of the total primary votes were cast in the Republican primary and only 34% in the Democratic.

Since I cannot conclusively prove in an open primary, how many actually crossed over vs independents, all we have is assumptions based on the history of previous voting patterns. There was widespread reporting at the time that cross over voting was rampant. This data would certainly indicate that crossover voting paid a large part. You stated that cross overs have never made any difference; baased on this data, I disagree

Once the crossover votes got Snyder through the primary, it wasn't a huge surprise he won the general by such a large margin. Granholm was very unpopular at the end of her term and Bernero was a weak candidate.

Say it gets to California and Sanders is still in the race but Trump has already been chosen as the republican nominee. You really want every CA republican to come out and vote for Sanders just to further divide the democratic party and force us into a contested convention?

...or causing a contested convention.

The majority of Super Delegates have always voted for the candidate with more pledged delegates, since the Super Delegate system began in 1984.

No...the reason for closed primaries is to keep GOP types from ruining our election...there is a reason why Bernie did not win closed primaries.

...is that he has a lot of young liberal supporters who don't yet think of themselves as Democratic Party members.

I do not live in your town - should I be able to vote for your mayor?

...and not too sensitive about identity-issues to call themselves Democrats.

If I move to a state with party registration, then I'll register as a Democrat.

I've been a liberal all my life, but didn't consider myself a Democrat until my 30s. Therefore, I'm sympathetic to young liberals who don't consider themselves Democrats yet.

Same nonsense argument.

favorite

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=#009999]You go in and they ask if you want to vote in the Republican Primary or Democratic Primary. Once you tell them they give you the corresponding ballot, you fill it out, and put it in the box.[/font]

- In the Democratic box it says, "Only vote here if you consider yourself a Democrat." In the Republican box it says, "Only vote here if you consider yourself a Republican."

We don't have that text in open primaries.

It's just a matter of fairness to people who pay for them

If a party wants a closed primary they can do it on their own dime. A political party is basically a club with loose affiliations, and the courts have ruled that clubs have all manner of freedom about membership rules and participation in club activities.

Open primaries in WI have columns for each party on the ballot, you have to declare you are voting in a particular column and you must only select candidates from that column. Setting aside problems with requiring WI voter id and the requirements to get voter id, this system works pretty efficiently. We even provide electronic tabulators for people with an interest in practicing hacking the vote.

Democrat for a day?

NT

You've replaced closed primaries with blanket primaries - the most open primary format of all - and called it a compromise.

...that in Minnesota, there isn't text on the ballot saying, "Only vote here if you consider yourself a Democrat" and "Only vote here if you consider yourself a Republican."

Join the Party if you want to make decisions for the Party.

yours. However I have a question. How do these rules get changed? Is there any way that this can be changed at the federal level?

If we are talking state by state it is going to take forever.

Personally if they want to make elections cheaper then the mail in ballot would be the cheapest. And easiest.

...or a national change for Democrats based on DNC pressure.

However, I don't know of any bills or DNC discussion about this.

a nightmare.

I want a say in every race that affects me.

or caucus, you could move to another state.

Each state's political parties make their own rules. That's why there are so many different iterations of caucuses and primaries. So either find out the rules in your state and abide by them, or relocate.

Or get very involved at the party level in your state to change things.

Primaries in every state are based on state law, and caucuses in some states are based on state law.

What is the result with an unopposed incumbent like Bush in 2004? A large number of Republican voters decide to vote as Democrats to make sure we have a weak candidate.

NT

Not saying that is why Kerry won, just a hypothetical example. I am convinced that Michigan governor Snyder won the R primary with D crossover votes in 2010

I am in favor of closed primaries. Too much opportunity for malicious crossover voting by either side. This is especially a problem when an incumbent is running like Obama in 2012 or Bush in 2004.

For those who think it never happens, I beg to differ. My state, Michigan, has a governor that has been characterized as one of the worst in the country. We have open primaries. In the 2010 election, Gov. Jennifer Granholm was term limited and with the state reeling in economic recession due to the auto industry, it was fairly obvious based on polling that a Repug was going to win. Her Lt Governor, John Cherry and other prominent Democrats all refused to run leaving it to "America's Angriest Mayor" Lansing Mayor Virg Benero and a somewhat obscure Mich House Speaker, Andy Dillon.

The Republican race had several candidates including a few prominent politicians and an unknown businessman Rick Snyder. With rather widespread crossover voting with 66% of the voters voting in the Repug primary, Rick Snyder was a surprise winner. It appeared that Democratic crossover voters wanted to play spoiler by making sure the better known politicians were defeated by someone with no political history.

Well the problem was that Snyder won easily over Benero by 20 pts, as expected and the "non political" businessman enacted right to work, instituted a pension tax on previously tax free public pensions, signed a controversial Emergency manager law and others. To this day, I blame the Democratic crossover voters for ensuring he won the primary

Rife for manipulation by if one side does not have a contest primary. As often happens for second term Presidential elections. If your own side has only one person running, then vote to fuck up the other party.


Sorry, really dumb idea.

what political party you registered to vote under. Over 50% of voters are now registered as independents because they feel neither party represents them. Bernie has inspired millions of these independents to come out and vote. It's a huge mistake to not welcome independents into the party. Closed primaries take away their constitutional right to vote for the candidate that inspired theml

On one hand, you're right. It's better to make voting as open as possible.

On the other hand, parties matter, and it's important for parties to choose their candidates.