Open Primaries Are A Democrat Ploy

Arizona has, for years, had a legislature dominated by Republicans.  Democrats have a difficult time getting representatives elected because voters reject their tax and spend proposals.  Has anyone in Arizona ever heard of a bill or proposal by Democrats that calls for balancing the budget, cutting spending, putting the axe to useless social programs?  Of course not.  The Democrats, like Democrats nation-wide always want to tax more and spend more.  If the state is upside down in debt, like California, not to worry; just raise taxes on working people.  In Arizona most voters dismiss Democrat ideas as ill conceived, expensive, and unnecessary.  So, they’re pushing hard for open primaries as a way to get leftists elected by trying to trick voters into thinking this is a good idea.  It isn’t.

Most voters are registered as Independent, Republican, or Democrat.  There are many that don’t register to vote because they’re not interested in their government.  Look at the low number of voters who actually cast a ballot.  It’s hard to get 60% of registered voters to show up and vote in a Presidential election.  In off-year elections the turnout is even more woeful.  If people are who can vote don’t care enough to actually vote, why do we have to employ some new tactic to entice them?  People are either good citizens who want to vote for the best candidate, or they just don’t care.

If Open Primary becomes the law, why have a primary at all?  Voters who care use the primary elections to winnow the field of declared candidates in preparation for the general election.  With an open primary who decides who the candidates are?  Is it anyone who feels like putting their name on the ballot?  Do candidates have a letter-designation after their name to show a party affiliation, or is it hidden to fool voters?  You could have a primary with 15-20 candidates running for an office, and none have a party affiliation noted on the ballot.  And this is a good idea?  More likely is that each party would select their candidate, and cut the voters out of the primary.  The idea would be to try and get that one candidate to the general rather than fearing that voters would split their votes among 3, 4, or 5 candidates from that party and none of them making it through to the general election.  Thus, it’s really not an open primary but a closed primary as far as voters are concerned.

If registered voters wouldn’t show up at the polls before, why would they show up now?  There’s no evidence that having an open primary would entice more voters.  Would people that don’t even register to vote now be enthused and get registered?  Not likely.

How does a candidate in an open primary advertise, get invitations to speak, or convince potential voters that they are the best candidate, use private money, or their own money?  If there are 15 candidates for an office in an open primary, what voter would want to contribute to one or more of them, based on what information?  Is it the candidate that finds a way to get private money from, say, moveon.org, to start promising more giveaways, more free stuff without having to disclose their party affiliation?

If you have a legislature, senate and house, that is filled with non-party affiliated representatives, who is the senate leader, the house leader?  Who sets the agenda for each body of the legislature?  Who chairs all of the committees and sub-committees in the legislature?  What we end up with is a gaggle of senators or house reps who squabble and fight over which bills are heard, which are not, and forget about balancing a budget for the state.

A political party generally has a set of core principles, and appeals to the voters to support those principles.  With no party affiliation how do voters know what the principles of the candidate are, or can they say anything to try and win, then switch to whatever principles suit them?

This is nothing but a ploy by a minority party to try and sneak more of their people into office by fooling the voters with the “open” primary scam.  Democrats can’t win if they have to admit that they want to tax more and spend more.  So, with open primaries, they can hide their principles, and just promise more giveaways to try and entice voters who want free stuff not responsible government.