| irishgrl |
12-27-2004 10:25 PM |
OPEN PRIMARY, a clarification
It seems as though people are a bit unclear about what constitutes an OPEN PRIMARY, and to clear up the confusion, I offer the following:
here is the LINK to an explanation of California's Open Primary Law from the CA Secretary of State
and this is a layman's explanation:
Quote:
For those readers who aren't from California (or the United States, for that matter), here's what an open primary is: As an example, let's say that Ron Smith and Roberta Jones, both Republicans, each think he or she is the best candidate for Governor. On the Democratic party side, Deborah Harris and Dan Thomas each thinks he/she is the best candidate for Governor.
In the November election, you can have only one Republican candidate and one Democratic candidate. How does each party decide who will be the their choice in November?
Rather than having the party officers choose, the state holds a primary election in which the voters decide whether Ron or Roberta will be the Republican candidate and whether Deborah or Dan will be the Democratic candidate.
When you registered to vote, you said which party you were affiliated with. Before 1998, if you had registered as a Democrat, you would get a ballot that gave you a choice between Deborah or Dan. If you were registered as a Republican, you could choose only between Ron and Roberta.
All of this has changed as of 2 June 1998. Now you will get a ballot with all four names: Ron, Roberta, Deborah, and Dan. You get to choose any one of them; it doesn't matter which party you registered with. This is called an open primary.
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note: I believe the foregoing is meant to explain the CA OPEN PRIMARY process, not necessarily other States' processess. for info on individual State's regulations, contact your Secretary of State...
I offered the foregoing because I was surprised to read that people couldnt vote in a primary because they were registered Democrats, and that doesnt make sense. if a person lives in a CLOSED PRIMARY state, it merely means he/she can only vote for a candidate in his/her own party and may not cross party lines to vote for a candidate from another party. Therefore, a registered Democrat could vote for a Democratic candidate for his/her State's nomination.
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