Open Primaries Initiative Officially Makes the 2024 Ballot in Washington DC

The D.C. Board of Elections recently confirmed that our friends at Make All Votes Count’s Yes on 83 Campaign met the statutory requirements to place Initiative 83 for open primaries and RCV on the November 2024 general election ballot. This is a momentous achievement for the campaign and will give DC voters - including the over 75,000 independents currently shut out of primaries- the option to approve the measure this November. 

Initiative 83 Proposer & Independent voter, Lisa D. T. Rice: 

“ We are thrilled to bring a vote on Initiative 83 to the ballot and to let the people decide in November.”

We can officially add another open primary campaign to the 2024 roster–let’s make it happen this November.

“I want to be an election judge not just for Republicans and Democrats. I want to be an election judge for 100% of the registered voters in my district. Surely, I’m not alone in wanting to repair our outdated system, to advocate for open primaries to ensure all voices are heard. Surely, other Marylanders want to promote candidates who can unite us, not divide us. If you feel like I do, join me in the fight to achieve open primaries in Maryland.”

- Melanie Combs-Dyer, Baltimore Sun, August 8, 2024.  

There’s a new community of independent voters in Maryland–Let Us Vote Maryland. There are close to a million independent MD voters, yet they are often ignored and excluded from the democratic process. Two Marylanders, Melanie Combs-Dyer and Ryan Blosser, have stepped up to challenge the status quo and fight for the full participation of ALL voters. 

Melanie is an election judge who is sick and tired of telling independent voters who show up on primary day that they can’t participate. She and Ryan have teamed up to build Let Us Vote Maryland as part of the national Let Us Vote community for independent voter empowerment.  

If you’re in Maryland and want to get involved visit HERE.  And please share the Baltimore Sun piece with everyone you know in Maryland. 

Across the country in South Dakota, Let Us Vote’s Citizen Spotlight this week features two South Dakotans from very different backgrounds but who are united in their fight to let all voters vote:  

SD State Representative Kadyn Wittman (D-15): “

"Individuals who choose to register as independent have just as much of a say in the primaries as someone who is registered Republican or Democrat. By excluding them from certain primaries, we're really stripping them of having a voice and a choice in who is going to represent them in the future."

Bill Stocker, a Marine Corps veteran: 

"You have people blindly following whatever the Republican platform is or whatever the Democratic platform is. They follow it like it's a cult. I'm an independent thinker. I'm going to think for myself, I'm going to decide for myself. I'm not automatically going to check that [box] because there's an R besides someone's name."

ARIZONA: Tahda A. Ahtone, a business leader in Tempe and a leader of the Business for Democracy-AZ collaborative wrote a piece for AZ Central this week asking an important question: Why are some backers of ‘free enterprise’ so afraid of the marketplace of ideas in elections? 

“The Arizona Free Enterprise Club has filed a lawsuit to stop the Make Elections Fair Act that would infuse our elections with the fundamentals of free enterprise: freedom to compete and freedom to choose. The citizen-led ballot initiative would abolish closed partisan primaries that deny these basic American freedoms to candidates and voters.”

IDAHO: Partisan insiders are getting desperate in Idaho to prevent Idahoans for Open Primaries open primary ballot initiative from moving forward. A former congressional staffer for Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador has founded a political action committee to fight the effort to let all Idahoans vote.  As Former Idaho AG & Justice on Idaho’s Supreme Court Jim Jones said in a recent op-ed:

“Labrador has a glaring conflict of interest under ethical rules that all Idaho lawyers are required to follow. Simply put, a lawyer cannot represent both sides of a lawsuit, especially where the lawyer is personally interested in the outcome. Labrador’s political future hinges on defeating the Open Primaries Initiative. He wants to keep the closed Republican primary because it strongly favors him and the Party’s other extreme candidates.”

NEW MEXICO: Our friend Bob Perls, Founder and President of NM Open Elections and a former State Representative in New Mexico has a new piece out in The Fulcrum digging into the Presidential election and the circumstances that led to Biden withdrawing:

 “It’s time to talk about how President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential campaign is related to our broken political system. This failing system got us to the point where we had the two major party candidates rejected by 70% of the electorate, according to most polls. Biden and former President Donald Trump are not the problem — they are a symptom of a much deeper problem that has led to a deeply dysfunctional political system full of destructive polarization and hyper-partisanship.

Bob asks and we second: What if the political parties did not control primary elections in the United States?

REGISTER TODAY: Open Primaries August Primary Buzz Discussion: 

CHANGE THE INCENTIVE, CHANGE THE GAME W/ CHLOE AKERS

WHO: OP Founder & President John Opdycke & Chloe Akers–Founder and CEO of The Best of Tennessee, a nonprofit focused on educating voters about the importance of participating in primary elections, about her efforts to “restore complexity” to Tennessee politics.  

WHAT: Akers just wrote a new piece in The Tennessean encouraging Tennessee voters to get out and vote in the primaries, despite efforts by partisan hacks to intimidate people and scare Tennesseans out of voting.

WHY: Chloe is a leader who believes strongly that the vast majority of Tennessee voters want smart solutions to the complex issues facing the state. A fifth-generation East Tennessean, Chloe is deeply committed to issues of representation and fairness. She uses the skills she honed as a trial lawyer, taking a diligent, patient, and detail-oriented approach to finding rational solutions to complex challenges. In a time where party leaders are working hard to shut out more and more voters, we need more leaders like Chloe stepping up to fight back. 

WHEN: This coming Tuesday August 13th at 3PM ET 

HOW: On Zoom. Register below:

See you Tuesday,

Open Primaries