Ask HN: Why are so many US States a closed primary state?

2 points·eat-them-rich··5 comments

It would seem to me that closed primaries are a big issue with politics in the US.

Primaries are by and for the parties themselves. They get to set the rules for how they determine what candidates they put on their tickets. I have huge issues with the existence of political parties in the first place, but as long as they exist, if they want to restrict that decision-making to party members only, I don't see any real issue with that. It's not like we're talking about the actual election here.

Why? It's mainly so people of that party are the ones choosing the candidates for that party. Without closed the other side purposely tries to sabotage the otherside by voting for the worst candidate.

Is that based on fact or is that the narrative they "mostly liberal states" want you to think?

For example in the State of Oregon there are ~1M non party registrations. ~900k Dems, ~700k Republicans. Oregon is a closed primary state, thus the greater majority is not represented in the primary. https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/electionsstatistics.a...

How many of those non party voters even care enough to vote in a primary. My guess is very few and if they did then they should switch their non to a party.

My experience with primaries is only the most dedicated vote in them. For example in Nevada you have to sit in rooms in schools and listen to every nut that wants to give a ten minute speech to change your vote.

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