West Virginia GOP Trying to Close Primaries, Shut Out 300,000 WV Voters

Last year, the West Virginia GOP voted at their convention to close the Republican primary by 2026. Now, West Virginia Republican Senator Eric Tarr is sponsoring a new closed primary bill that has been fast-tracked by party leaders that would ban independent voters from participating in either party’s primary elections. The state has employed open primaries for decades. It’s a blatant move to control West Virginia’s elections.

“Why wouldn’t we encourage voters to come out and vote? There are Independents or non-affiliated people who do not fit into the two-party system. Their belief systems do not go all Republican, or all Democrat, so this is where they align.”

-Christina Baisden, Raleigh County Democrats Secretary 

It’s expected that the WV GOP’s Executive Committee will formally announce their support of closed primaries soon. We’re monitoring the situation and will keep you in the loop. 

Partisan Insiders in Oklahoma Push Back As Campaign to get Open Primaries on the Ballot Gains Momentum

A new bill in Oklahoma–Senate Bill 1027 is attempting to change how signatures for ballot initiatives are collected, by limiting how many can be collected in the state’s most populous counties and requiring a minimum be collected in the least populated. 

This new bill is directly aimed to hinder the process of Oklahomans getting initiatives they care about on the ballot. Margaret Kobos, Founder of Oklahoma United laid it out perfectly:

As the campaign to get open primaries on the ballot in Oklahoma (Vote Yes on 836) continues to pick up momentum–check out this great new piece in Tulsa World on why open primaries would offer Oklahomans more freedom–we can expect more and more efforts from party leaders and special interests to try and curb the will of the voters of Oklahoma.

Independent New Mexicans Speaking Out in Favor of SB16 and Opening the Primaries to All Voters are Catching the Attention of Local Media 

Rodzaiah Curtis, a young Navajo activist from New Mexico has penned a new op-ed in the Tri-city Record in support of SB 16 after attending a hearing for the bill before the New Mexico House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee. SB 16 would would allow independent voters the right to vote in the most important elections in the state – the primaries:

“This bill is critically important to me and to my community. I am a 21-year Navajo, and I am an independent voter…I am not alone in becoming an independent voter. In my community, 28.8% of Native voters, and a whopping 40.7% of Native voters under the age of 35 are independent. Native voters are almost three times more likely to register as unaffiliated with a political party than non-Native voters.”

And Tañia Triolo, a retired speech and language pathologist who lives in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque has a new op-ed featured in New Mexico Political Report where she lays out why this is personal to her: 

“I spent my career as a speech and language pathologist, which means I have spent a great deal of time and effort helping people communicate and be understood. Voting is a critical part of communicating as an individual in a democracy. No one should face unnecessary barriers to their right to express themselves at the ballot box.“

The bill has passed in the State Senate and the New Mexico House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee–it must now pass the NM House Judiciary Committee before it can go to the floor of the House for a vote.

Check out all the independent New Mexicans, like Rodzaiah  and Tania, that we’ve met who have recently come forward and are speaking out in their own communities on open primaries matters to them.

If you’re in New Mexico and can pitch in and get involved in this final push–click here!

Lawsuit Could Shed New Light on the Limits of Party Control of Primaries

A new lawsuit has been announced by leaders in Virginia’s 6th Congressional District in response to a law passed by the legislature in 2021. That law requires state parties to either participate in the state-run partisan primary system which accommodates a wide range of voters who can’t participate in person (due to disability, military service, sickness etc.) or make similar accommodations in alternative candidate selection forums.   

Some leaders within the GOP have voiced unease for some time with the state’s combination of nonpartisan voter registration and an open primary-arguing that it allows voters who identify with one party to participate in the nominating contest of another. Some have introduced legislation to try to close the primaries in the past as a result. That the state could potentially eliminate or at least try to effect an alternative to the state run primary system has pushed them over the edge-especially after the state’s Republican Attorney General issued a finding validating concerns.

Cases balancing political parties’ first amendment right of association and the state’s ability to regulate partisan primaries have generally favored political parties, which is why several states have moved to replace them with nonpartisan primaries. The one big exception has been the right of independent voters to participate in state run partisan primaries, where recent cases have found that the act of taking a party ballot is sufficient to show an interest in affiliation. If this case proceeds, it could shed new light on the limits of party control within a partisan primary framework. We’ll be watching it closely.

We are excited to announce that the Spokesperson Training for Independents, formerly a program of IndependentVoting.org, now makes a new home at Open Primaries. The Spokesperson Training (held on Zoom) offers independents and reform-minded citizens a creative space to develop your skills and share with others why you have chosen to be independent.

The training has attracted hundreds of participants, including many leaders in the open primaries movement. Participants will be presented with an overview of who independents are across the country, learn key talking points to dispel commonly held myths about who we are, have a Q&A session with independent leader Jackie Salit, and get performance training from top-notch professional trainers.

If you're interested in applying for the next Spokesperson Training, which will be Tuesday May 20 at 6:30pm ET, Apply here or email Gwen Mandell, Open Primaries’ new Director of Leadership Development at [email protected] for more information.

RSVP: Former Meet the Press Host Chuck Todd Sits Down w/ Open Primaries President John Opdycke

On Tuesday March 18th at 3pm ET, Open Primaries President John Opdycke will sit down for our monthly Primary Buzz Discussions Series for a timely conversation with special guest Chuck Todd (who spent nearly 10 years as the moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press) titled: Advancing Reform in a World Without Trust. 

Todd recently left NBC after nearly 20 years citing: “National media can’t win trust back without having a robust partner locally and trying to game algorithms is no way to inform and report. People are craving community and that’s something national media or the major social media companies can’t do as well as local media. If you do this job seeking popularity, or to simply be an activist, you are doing this job incorrectly.” 

We’ll discuss the connection between reforming our politics and restoring trust in a wide range of institutions.

Have a great weekend,

The Open Primaries Team