If You Are Not a Party Member, Don't Vote in the Primary
The other day I was in the parking lot of a grocery store when a young woman with a clip board and an endearing smile walked up to me and asked if I would like to sign a petition to let non-party members vote in primaries (I forget the exact phrasing). I said no, and asked why she thought they should. She was a consummate professional - breaking off with a smile, without an answer, and moving on without making me feel bad.
I thought that the independent voters ability to interfere with a party’s primary was already a done deal… maybe I misunderstood what she said. Anyway, I checked out the Secretary of State’s website and, according to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, independent voters may interfere with the primary of either the Democrat or Republican primary - they just have to tell the Recorder which ballot they want. Note that both the Libertarian and the Green Parties have closed primaries, so no skullduggery there - which provides some solace, knowing that there are some political organizations whose members breathe through their noses.
I have a friend who does not see any problem with that sort of thing. A few years ago, I asked her if she had any justification for someone with no party affiliation participating in a party’s candidate selection process. She said that based on the fact that, if elected, the party’s candidate would have an effect of her life, she had an interest in participating in the choosing of the candidate. We were packing up our stuff after a meeting, so I responded by saying, “Well, a U.S. Senator from Colorado has as much effect on you as your U.S. Senator from Arizona, but you don’t get to vote for the guy in Colorado”, hoping that the rest would fall into place for her. Alas, she paused, raised her eyebrows, and said, “That’s true!” while nodding her head and turning to leave the room, either rejecting or missing the significance. It was the sort of response that she might have made had I said, “A honey be flaps its wings over 200 times a second!”, mildly interesting, but of no consequence.
Some may say, “So what if a few Independents engage in that, what difference would it make?” Allow me to point out that roughly one third of registered voters in Arizona are registered as Independents. That does not mean, of course, that they are actual Independents. Many are party member opportunists who will vote for their guy in the general election, but use the crossover primary vote to corrupt the process for a competing party.
Another disheartening fact is that the law allowing “Independents” to do this was enacted through a ballot prop, meaning that a majority of voters in Arizona thought it acceptable that voters were entitled to play a role in candidate selection in a party against which they were competing. It makes no sense, and is clearly unethical.
There are also many problems with ballot props, not the least of which is the fact that once passed and made law, that law can only be undone by another ballot prop. The legislature may not repeal it, and can only modify it in ways that do not change the intent. It is effectively a constitutional amendment.
So, we are stuck with it. The best we can do is make an appeal to the People. The People collectively can do the right thing by their own volition. I’ll start an appeal to do so with an aphorism, “Just because you can do something, does mean that you should do something.” Let the Republicans and the Democrats pick their candidates. It’s the ethical thing to do, and it is good to avoid bad karma.