Let Them Vote: A Democrat Rethinks Primary Access

Former White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis speaks out

Democrats should want independents voting in their primaries, not bar them.

I used to believe “closed” primaries were an essential element of the two-party system. Primary elections exist for each of our two major political parties to carry their party banner and support the party platform in the general election. It made sense to require those participating in those elections to at least be registered as Democratic or Republican voters. Those who declined to do so, called “independent” or “non-aligned” voters, can wait for the general election.

I opposed open primaries because I believe that America’s traditional two-party tradition, despite its flaws, needed to be strengthened, not weakened. Because of our two-party system tradition, we have avoided allowing slivers of voters in fringe parties to exert disproportionate power, as seen in parliamentary systems such as Israel, where, for example, far-right religious parties have influence far out of proportion to their numbers.