Message from Cathy Stewart, Let Us Vote Project Manager:

When we launched Let Us Vote last year to organize and empower the almost 50% of voters who are independent across the country, we couldn’t have imagined how quickly it would have an impact.

We often say that independents have the numbers, but not the narrative. But here is the dirty little secret that the two party powers that be don’t want anyone to know-

When independents organize and make their collective voices heard, they can have a profound impact on the political dynamic. Read OP President John Opdycke’s piece in The Hill as he reviews all the impact independents are making across the country.

That’s why we wanted to devote this week’s newsletter to showcasing the ways that the Let Us Vote community of independents are exerting their power.

But first, a message from Rodzaiah Curtis, a Let Us Vote activist from New Mexico.

Speaking of New Mexico, earlier this year we won a huge victory with the passage of SB 16 to open NM’s closed primaries, the culmination of a decade of work with the team at New Mexico Open Elections and New Mexico Voters First.

Credit Let Us Vote activists who became the public face of the campaign this year. Our Independents Speak Out video project captured dozens of NM independent voters on camera and broadcast them across the state. Independent voters from diverse communities sent letters, postcards and emails to their legislators and made scores of phone calls as the bill was heard in committees and on the floor of both chambers. They wrote letters to the editor, and statewide opinion pieces. They told their stories of why they are independent and why SB16 is important, and those stories were broadcast across social media.

Independents submitted written testimony and attended meetings with legislators, and spoke at events. The outspokenness of independent voters presented lawmakers with a clear problem that needed to be solved.

When the Charter Revision began their work in January, primary reform was nowhere on their agenda. Their mandate was to look at NYC’s housing crisis. But then, at public hearing after public hearing, independent voters showed up by the dozens in person, online and in writing with a simple message-Let Us Vote. By the end of its run, Let Us Vote had helped organize hundreds of independent voters to testify before the Commission and opening the primaries to the city’s 1.1 million independent voters became the number one subject of testimony before them.

New York City has been an outlier among American cities, 85% of whom use an open primary system, for decades. And the city’s Democratic Party dominated establishment and legacy “reformers” have been successful in keeping the fight for genuine reform off the political agenda of the city-until now.

Over the course of five months, independent voters put open primaries on the map in NYC, undoing two decades of work by political leaders to keep the subject suppressed.

Primary reform dominated local headlines, forcing the NY Times to cover the issue here, here, and here. Independents generated letters to the editor, opinion pieces and local tv coverage.

Torsha Childs spoke about her experience and that of her children, all of whom are independents:

Jeff Aron spoke about the “creepy” experience of being told to just reregister to be able to vote:

Independents forced Democratic Party leaders, who had comfortably stayed in the shadows, to reveal their true motivations and ultimately emerge to kill the open primaries proposal. Watch “progressive” City Comptroller Brad Lander declare his disdain for NYC independents (54% of whom are voters of color):

And yet…almost every Commissioner publicly declared open primaries to be critical to the city’s future. Their interim and final reports included extensive sections on the need for the city to move to a system of open primaries and provided much of the background research and commentary for that to happen. Finally, their commissioning of a detailed voting rights analysis of top two open primaries from former US Attorney Loretta Lynch (finding that they would strengthen the ability of protected classes, including Black, Hispanic and Asian voters, to participate in the political process) will be a valuable asset to building reform across the country.

A genuine conversation has emerged in NYC and independents will continue to fuel it until they get their due. As OP President John Opdycke wrote in an oped in the Daily News, what happened in NYC should serve as a roadmap for how primary reform continues to advance in NYC and around the country.

Bart Farar from Pennsylvania:

In May of this year, The Open Primaries Education Fund, in partnership with Davis, Agnor, Rapaport & Skalny, LLC, one of Maryland’s leading law firms, filed a lawsuit in Maryland against the Maryland State Board of Elections, challenging the State’s closed primary elections as unconstitutional.   

At the heart of the case are the five plaintiffs – independent voters from across the state chosen from a network of over 30 Let Us Vote organized independents who volunteered to step forward to challenge the state in court.

Maryland has over 966,000 unaffiliated voters who are barred from voting in the public primaries. After many years of trying to get legislation passed, these voters had had enough.

Plaintiff Dona Sauerburger has worked for ten years to try and win voting rights for independents in MD. She told the Washington Post in talking about her motivation for being a plaintiff in the lawsuit:

The case is making waves, not only Maryland but the rest of the country with over a dozen publications carrying the story, including features in the Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun.

As the lawsuit makes its way through the courts, the Let Us Vote community, working with Independent Voters of MD, has begun a public awareness campaign through letters to the editor, opeds and a statewide Independents Speak Out campaign.

Maryland is one of four states that have active litigation challenging the closed primary structure. PA, OR, and WY are the other states where independents are insisting on equal voting rights. Their actions are being covered by over a hundred publications across the country.

In July, Let Us Vote hosted our first Power Hour – a monthly gathering of independents on zoom, where we share updates, organizing tips and then get on our phones and reach other members of the Let Us Vote community to invoice them to participate in one of our campaigns.  In July we focused on calling members in Oklahoma and inviting them to join our National Media Appeal.

Here is what Brianna Strong had to say about the experience:

The next Power Hour is on August 25th at 6 pm ET. You can register to join us here.

There is huge untapped political power in the independent voter community becoming organized. Independents themselves don’t yet know the power that is created when small groupings of independents come together and make their voices heard. 

We need your help today.  For every donation you make, we can reach more independent voters. Every $24 allows us to recruit 5 more independents into the Let Us Vote community.

Have a great weekend,

The Open Primaries Team