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There is an initiative on the upcoming June 8 ballot calling for an Open Primary here in California. As it stands now, our Primaries are closed which means you can only vote for the party with which you are registered. With an Open Primary the top two vote-gettters, regardless of party affiliation would run off in the general election in November.
If you are registered as Non-Partisian you may only vote for those parties which have agreed to accept your vote. During this upcoming election, both the Rep and the Dem parties have agreed to accept NP votes. Interestingly, during the Primary for the last Presidential election only the Dem party accepted NP voters.
Pros:
It would be less expensive for the State/County when holding a Primary election. For this June there are 9 different ballots to be used. Dem, Rep, NP voting Dem, NP voting REP, NP, American Green, Independent, Peace and Freedom and Libertarian. That is not only a lot of money in printing but also a lot of work for us poll workers to keep track and keep straight.
Cons:
My major con is one that is perfectly exampled in this upcoming Primary. The Dem party (although there are many names on the ballot) has only 1 viable candidate for Governor, it is pretty much a given that he will be elected to represent the Dem party in November.
However, the Rep party has a heated and much publicized (make those damn commercials STOP) race between 2 candidates (again many other names on the ballot).
If this were an "open" primary I would figure out who I think the Dem candidate has a better chance of beating, or which I feel to be the most liberal of the 2 and vote for them as opposed to voting within my own party since that is pretty much a given already.
Get what I am saying?
My second Con is that what if the top two vote-getters are from the same party? That would be a huge deterrent to getting voters to the polls in November. It is already hard to get voters up off their asses to vote, I can't see this helping any.
I have never seen an Open Primary in action and am curious if others have experience with it and what your thoughts are.
