Bob Sparks: Voters still have plenty of choices without open primaries

Most Florida voters have some vitally important choices to make in this year’s primary election in late August. Republicans and Democrats have some key choices to make, but some want to expand the voter pool.

For a quarter century, Leon County has been well served by its Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho. Voters in Tallahassee and the surrounding communities do not endure the problems that confront other parts of Florida. Republicans and Democrats alike compliment the way he does his job.

Sancho is a tireless advocate for voter participation. If there is a way to make it easier for more people to vote, he is all for it.

In that vein, he is a strong advocate for open primaries, where independents or members of other parties can vote in Republican and Democratic Party primaries. It is here where he runs into opposition from members of both parties.

Advocates for open primaries say it is not fair for Republicans and Democrats to exclusively choose their own party’s nominees. They believe the Socialist Party or the Libertarian Party, for example, should be able to help decide the nominees of the major parties. They also want those who register with No Party Affiliation (NPA) to participate.

A group of Floridians, including Sancho, are part of an effort to change the Florida Constitution with an amendment that would open the primaries to all registered voters. All Voters Vote is an organization trying to obtain enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot in 2018.

Sancho shared his views in a Tallahassee Democrat story titled “Sancho: Primaries persecute voters.” The online version carried a different, and far more accurate, headline.

The printed version is troubling in two ways. First, nowhere in the story was Sancho quoted as using the word “persecute.” It would seem the paper’s headline writer added some personal bias into his or her work.

Second, Sancho did say that the closed primary system constitutes “taxation without representation.” His comment refers to independents and minor party members paying for elections with their tax dollars in which they cannot participate.

It must be made clear that these individuals are not permitted to participate because of choices they made. They chose to register within a different party or chose not to participate in party politics at all. There is nothing wrong with that.

Minor party members and NPAs should have no more business voting in major party primaries than I do in the electrician’s union elections. Just because I consume electricity or my tax dollars are used to pay union electricians working under government contracts does not give me or non-IBEW members any right to choose their leaders.

The Democrats controlled the county apparatus in several Florida counties, especially the Panhandle, for decades. Voters knew that if they wished to participate in the primaries, where the winners were frequently determined, they had to register as a Democrat.

The solution here is simple. If having a voice in determining a party’s nominee is that important, then register with that party.

The All Voters Vote web site mentions the fact that since “2012, a majority of newly registered voters chose (emphasis added) to be a member of neither political party.” The group goes on to mention the declining percentages of Republicans and Democrats.

This is true, but it still does not answer the question as to why non-members should have the same access as those who want the best candidate for their party? Open primaries provide plenty of opportunities for Democrats or Republicans to make mischief in the other party’s selection process.

Anyone can make the choice to have a voice in the primary. If that person does not wish to vote for any other candidate on that party’s ticket in the general election, they are free to make that choice as well.

Voters are free to be a Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Libertarian or whatever. They just can’t have it both ways by shunning both parties, then wanting to participate in the most important decisions made by those parties.

For those of us opposing open primaries, a chance for broad consensus exists to change another area of Florida election law that needs changing. When one of the major parties fails to nominate a candidate for a particular office, a write-in candidate can be recruited to effectively lock out everyone else.

This loophole invites shenanigans and should be closed. If one of the major parties does not recruit a candidate to be placed on the ballot, that primary election should be open to all.

Other than that, voters can still help choose major party nominees by making a choice of their own.

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Bob Sparks is a business and political consultant based in Tallahassee. Column courtesy of Context Florida.