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Editorial: Florida needs open primary

 
It’s good news that tens of thousands of voters in Florida are rushing to register as Democrats or Republicans to have their voices heard in the upcoming presidential primary. But Florida needs to adopt an open primary to fully and fairly bring these voters into the political process.
It’s good news that tens of thousands of voters in Florida are rushing to register as Democrats or Republicans to have their voices heard in the upcoming presidential primary. But Florida needs to adopt an open primary to fully and fairly bring these voters into the political process.
Published Feb. 17, 2016

First the good news: Tens of thousands of voters in Florida are rushing to register as Democrats or Republicans to have their voices heard in the upcoming presidential primary. But these voters don't identify with the two major parties, and forcing them to pick sides only reinforces an antiquated and disenfranchising elections system. Florida needs to adopt an open primary to fully and fairly bring these voters into the political process.

As the Tampa Bay Times' Steve Bousquet reported Wednesday, nonpartisan voters scrambled to meet Tuesday's registration deadline to vote in the state's presidential primary March 15. Florida is the largest of 13 states that still have closed primaries, meaning that only Democrats and Republicans can vote in those parties' nomination races.

Tampa Bay area voters who changed their registration told the Times they wanted a voice in the hotly contested and highly unpredictable presidential race this year. In Pinellas County since Jan. 1, 1,435 voters changed from no party affiliation, or NPA, to Democrat and 1,263 changed from NPA to Republican. In Hillsborough, 895 voters switched from NPA to Democrat, while 662 NPA voters became Republican.

The switches come as more people identify as independents — and then realize that shunning party labels keeps them largely frozen out of the electoral process. Statewide, no-party affiliation voters had increased to 2.9 million, or 24 percent of the 12 million registered, by the end of January. Compared to the last election cycle in 2014, no-party voters make up 1 percent more of the electorate, the only group to post a bigger share.

But even as no-party voters increase their ranks, Florida's closed primary system largely excludes them from the process. With the major parties in control of the primaries, no-party voters are left to shape early outcomes in nonpartisan races lower on the ballot, from school boards to judicial offices. The net effect is that voters who want to align as independents are forced to side with the major parties after they have already made a conscious decision not to — that is, if they want to influence which candidates for high office make it onto the general election ballot. As Bousquet points out, lawmakers in Tallahassee who oppose the closed primary have routinely filed bills to reform the system, but both parties benefit from the status quo of appealing to the most committed partisans.

This saps voter engagement, hampers consensus-building and all but weeds out political moderates from the nominating process. There's also little benefit to bringing more voters into the process only to force them to identify with the most polarizing candidates and causes.

Voters should be allowed to vote in the primary of their choice. This is an incremental reform that would keep the major party system alive and is in keeping with the Fair Districts amendments aimed at making electoral districts more fair and competitive. It also would help to meaningfully bring new voters into the political process.