Closed Primary Election, Could It Be The Path to Nominating the Best Qualified Political Candidates?

By Sandie Zimmerman

Closed Primaries are defined by Findlaw as, “Permitting only Registered Members of a Political Party to vote in the Parties Primary Election. This requires a voter to declare a party affiliation before voting/before election day.” Ones allegiance to a political party plays a major role in a Closed Primary. One of the most important decisions, a political party can make, is choosing their party’s nominees, Closed Primaries are a powerful pathway to those decisions.

According to Ballotpedia, an Open Primary is a type of primary election where voters do not have to formally affiliate with a political party in advance in order to vote in its primary. Although this may
appear to be an optimal method of nominating candidates, politics rarely plays fair.

Imagine that you and your opponent have competing teams. Your adversary chooses your team members while you choose theirs. What are the chances that neither team ends up with the best most qualified candidates? According to OpinionFront, this effort by political parties, is called ‘raiding.’ 

”Raiding is when members of the competing parties play a role in selecting nominees for each other,” OpinionFront said. “They are bound to make sure to engineer circumstances that are best suited for them. They are provided an opportunity to choose the weakest link for their opposition.”

Recently, in the Ohio House of Representatives, two Closed Primary Bills have been proposed. HB210 sponsored by, Ohio House Representative (R) Jennifer Gross (district 45) and Ohio House Representative (R) Gary Glick (district 88) HB208 sponsored by Ohio House Representative (R) Thomas Hall (district 46). Both bills would require political party registration to vote in a party’s primary.

Call your legislators today and ask for these important pieces of legislation to be passed. Without Closed Primaries opposing parties would be allowed to choose the oppositions nominees, which could spell disaster and destroy a party.