Declaration of independents
April 23rd, 2008 3:27 pm · 11 comments
It didn’t receive much fanfare, but six days ago state Rep. Jaret Gibbons, a Democrat, introducted legislation in the state House that would allow independents to participate in Pennsylvania’s primary. Too late for this year, obviously, but this would radically change our statewide primaries. As it is, we have a closed primary, where Republicans vote in the Republican contest and Democrats in Democratic contests, but independents cannot participate.
The rhetorical question, of course, is should independents be allowed to participate?
From the news release:
Gibbons said his legislation, H.B. 2482, would permit Independent voters to file an affidavit or provisional party registration with the county election district no later than 30 days before each primary. This would allow the voter to commit to a party for primary purposes only and his/her registration would never officially change.
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Tags: Election Reform · State House
There are currently 11 comments on this blog postView Topic | Comment on this blogLancaster
4/23/08
10:15 PM | QUOTE(Lancaster Online @ Apr 23 2008, 03:30 PM) [snapback]381476[/snapback]
Post your thoughts and comments about this blog post.
This is a good idea - shouldn't even be a question. I don't like the part about having to choose a party though.
Why can't independents just be, well, independent? They are Americans too, and shouldn't be trivialized by the two big parties - ugh
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twinmom
4/23/08
11:05 PM | I registered independant because I can't fully relate to either party and refuse to just pick one. It really makes me mad that to vote I have to register one way or the other. I honestly couldn't decide between Obama or Clinton and didn't change my registration for the primary. I don't feel that I should have to. Other states have open primaries so I don't understand why PA has to be so obtuse about the whole thing. It did save me the umpteen phone calls my husband got. We even got one from Obama's camp while he was in Lancaster giving his speech! And one that claimed it was Hillary, but didn't sound like her at all. |
UncommonSense
4/24/08
12:07 AM | As I understand it, the primary process is for the parties to select their standard-bearer for the general election. In this case, the current system in PA seems logical. If we go to open primaries, would each voter get to vote in each parties primary? This would seem to be necessary. Any thoughts, board? |
philly54
4/24/08
6:53 AM | QUOTE(Lancaster @ Apr 23 2008, 10:15 PM) [snapback]381537[/snapback]
This is a good idea - shouldn't even be a question. I don't like the part about having to choose a party though.
Iv'e been in favor of some fashion of this his for a long time, but I see little chance of it ever becoming a law in a state like Pa. Both parties are so entrenched in their own ideology that they view this sort of thinking as a intrusion into their long standing stance that ' if you aren't with us from the beginning, then you are not one of us' almost as tho Independents are some sort of an alien virus that would disrupt their business as usual type of politics. Voting for the endorsed candidate, fund raising, that sort of thinking.. As far as having to choosing a party 30 days before hand, I tend to think that's to prevent voter fraud which I think is necessary, thus the affidavit.
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Scubabike420
4/24/08
8:23 AM | I agree that this is a step in the right direction but what we really need is a same day, nation wide open primary. No conventions. Just the top 5 from the primary on the ballot for the election. |
Lysol54
4/24/08
8:57 AM | I think the other reason you won't ever see an open primary in PA is because of what happened this time around. You had one party who clearly had a nominee and the other party had two people, one who could probally easily be beaten and the other one a little stronger. If you allowed an open primary people would just vote for the weak person, knowing that they would be easier to beat come November. I mean many people switched party's this election to do just that. While i think an open primary would be a good thing, its people doing things like that that will make sure the system never changes. |
grieker
4/24/08
9:19 AM | QUOTE(twinmom @ Apr 23 2008, 11:05 PM) [snapback]381546[/snapback] I registered independant because I can't fully relate to either party and refuse to just pick one. It really makes me mad that to vote I have to register one way or the other. I honestly couldn't decide between Obama or Clinton and didn't change my registration for the primary. I don't feel that I should have to. Other states have open primaries so I don't understand why PA has to be so obtuse about the whole thing. It did save me the umpteen phone calls my husband got. We even got one from Obama's camp while he was in Lancaster giving his speech! And one that claimed it was Hillary, but didn't sound like her at all.
I believe having to choose a party is basically for metrics/statistics so each group has an idea of how many of them there are.
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Buster
4/24/08
9:39 AM | I'd like to see this taken one step further...eliminate the straight party vote in the general election. I know that neither major party would be happy about this. However, I have worked at the polls and found that many people, mostly senior citizens, think that they HAVE to check the straight party box because they are registered as a Rep or a Dem. They are surprised to learn that they can vote for individual candidates. Other's do this because they won't even consider voting for someone of the other party. I'd rather that people make a conscious choice with their vote. |
johnq
4/24/08
10:00 AM | QUOTE(Scubabike420 @ Apr 24 2008, 08:23 AM) [snapback]381603[/snapback] I agree that this is a step in the right direction but what we really need is a same day, nation wide open primary. No conventions. Just the top 5 from the primary on the ballot for the election. I like the idea of the same day, nationwide primary. But if we take the top 5, how do we decide who wins the open election? Do we require over 50% for the winner? Do we take the top vote getter? That sort if thing sounds attractive, but it makes it hard to get things done once a government is in place. |
mam0412
4/24/08
12:42 PM | Here in VA we have open primaries. You do not have to register with any particular party to vote in either primaries or generals. Yes, Republicans can vote in Democratic primaries and vice versa. And yes, people in both parties switch over from time-to-time. But I don't believe there are many that game the system by switching though. For example, my very Republican neighbor voted for Obama in the primaries. He figured McCain was all wrapped up and he felt that if McCain loses in November, he'd prefer Obama over Hillary. He didn't go vote for Hillary and game the system like Rush suggested (this neighbor is also a big Rush fan). I really like the system. When I first moved here from PA I thought it was a national rule that you had to pick a party to vote in the primaries, but was thrilled to discover you don't have to in VA. I'm not really a party person, so this system works well for me. I have tended toward Republicans in the past, but as we've seen - particularly with this Administration, the parties change now and then. You won't find me supporting too many Republicans these days. And I don't have to switch my registration because of it (although I'm not registered as anything).
I will say though that this year, the Republicans tried to change that rule. They know they're going to have trouble this year, so they didn't want Democrats switching over in the primaries. Even with a Republican majority in our state legislature, the motion failed. |
Purkle
4/25/08
10:40 PM | It would be nice if we did away with parties all together and started voting for candidates based on what they say and on their record instead of by what party they belong to.
Go ahead and have primaries, get rid of caucuses, the top three or four popular vote winners go on to a runoff, narrow it down to two and the winner becomes president and the other becomes vice president.
No parties needed, the people decide directly, no delegates to count, just good old fashioned democracy and the will of the people making the decision.
You could even just take the top two and leave out the narrowing it down to four. I just thought that would be better since there's usually such a large group and it would be good to take out spoilers. Or just take the top two from the four, it doesn't matter.
This two mega party system is what hurts us more than anything. They'd have to introduce bills and vote on them by their merits instead of what their party says and so much more could get done. Forget alliances and lobbyists and all of it and just vote.
Oh, and every state votes on the same day and it's done. No more of this moving from state to state to make it easier to campaign for the candidates
One person=one vote, straight up and to the point. Let a board of governors decide any ties since they supposedly hold the support of their state.
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