A new group pushing for open presidential primaries in all 50 states has concluded that this year’s Democratic and Republican primaries carried a taxpayer price tag of nearly half a billion dollars.
Open Primaries, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, compiled data from each state and estimated that the primaries cost at least $427 million. The true figure is believed to be higher as some expenses cannot be tracked.
More than half of the financial impact, $287 million, was felt in states that have closed primaries where independent voters cannot participate.
Open Primaries found that 26.3 million voters were blocked from participating in 2016 primary elections because they were not registered as a Republican or Democrat.
A poll conducted in May revealed broad bipartisan support among voters for open primaries and a distinct distaste for the current system.
The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Americans believe open primaries are more fair than closed primaries, by a 69 percent to 29 percent margin. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say open primaries are the most fair, 73 percent to 62 percent.
According to the poll, 38 percent of Americans said they had hardly any confidence that the Democratic Party’s process for selecting a presidential nominee is fair; 44 percent said the same of the Republican Party’s process.
Just 17 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats expressed a great deal of confidence in their own party’s system being fair.
Critics of the current system point out that independent voters are the fastest growing share of the electorate and could soon outnumber both parties combined. According to the Independent Voters Network, half of all Millennials identify as independent at the same time that the just-completed primary season sparked numerous complaints in both parties about the nominating process.
Superdelegates, closed primaries, complicated caucuses and questionable vote-counting and delegate-selection procedures led Democratic supporters of Bernie Sanders to claim that the nomination was being “stolen” by party leaders and Hillary Clinton supporters. After the #NeverTrump movement emerged in the GOP midway through the primary season, Donald Trump called the Republican process “rigged.”
Open Primaries has launched a petition drive that garnered more than 32,000 signatures in little over a month. The unsuccessfully sought to pressure the Democratic and Republican parties to adopt a “50 state open primaries” rule at their conventions this month.
In a statement, Open Primaries laid out their case for ending caucuses and closed primaries:
… Open Primaries is one organization leading a movement to ensure that all voters have a stake in their political system, and that our government is representative of the people, not the parties.
There is always a rebuttal to any point made about primary reform. However, those who argue that voters should join a party if they want to vote in primaries fail to recognize one of the central tenets of the open primaries movement: closed primaries are funded by taxpayer dollars, and that isn’t right.
… Parties are private organizations and they shouldn’t be taxpayer-subsidized; especially, when they directly and inherently seek to exclude as many voters as possible in those very primary elections that are funded by taxpayers.
Photo: Open Primaries
