An UNMUTED Debate: Primary Party Crashers

​Should primaries be open to every voter?

​More Americans now identify as independent than as Democrat or Republican. Yet in New York and many other states, those voters are shut out of the primaries that often decide who actually wins. So are closed primaries locking out the voters our politics needs most? And would opening them make anything better?

​Open primaries let any registered voter participate, regardless of party. Supporters say they force candidates to campaign to the whole electorate, reward problem-solvers over partisans, and give millions of independents a real voice. Critics say parties have the right to choose their own nominees, that open systems invite strategic crossover voting and voter confusion, and that the evidence they reduce polarization is thin.

​So who’s right? Are open primaries the fix for a system that rewards the extremes? Or are they a reform that promises more than it delivers?

​John Opdycke is the founder and president of Open Primaries, a national organization working to enact and protect open and nonpartisan primaries. He has spent three decades in independent and reform politics, helped found the New York State Independence Party, and writes the monthly column Brash Tacks for The Fulcrum.

​Lindsey Cormack is an associate professor of political science and director of the Diplomacy Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology. She is the author of How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It) and Congress and U.S. Veterans, created the DCInbox database of congressional newsletters, and serves as Secretary of Manhattan Community Board 8.

​Let’s get into it.

​UNMUTED is the place where talking points go to die.