Next week, voters across the state will head to the polls and cast votes for candidates running in primary contests for local and state offices.
Here in the Capital District, politics watchers will no doubt have observed this year’s races are particularly crowded. The imminent retirement of lawmakers such as Jack McEneny and Bob Reilly have triggered something of a scramble to fill their shoes — and the shoes of those of who will presumably be filling their shoes. Redistricting that has created an entirely new senate district locally has not helped to simplify things.
What’s wonderful about this upcoming contest is voters have a bevy of choices (in one assembly district, no fewer than six candidates will be on the Democratic ballot). Having a choice in representation, especially in a state known for stratospheric incumbency rates, is the cornerstone of the democratic process.
Well, some voters will have choices this year — if they belong to the right party, that is. New York State operates on a closed primary system, meaning only voters registered with a particular party may vote in the corresponding race.
On the face of things, this might seem a fair and equitable practice; the people invested in the party will get to choose the standard bearer. In reality, what more often happens is large swaths of the public are disenfranchised because the primary race ends up being the only contest that matters.
Take the race for Albany County district attorney, where Lee Kindlon is challenging incumbent David Soares. There are no other candidates as of yet in this overwhelmingly Democratic county. There are 196,000 registered voters in Albany County, 98,000 of them Democrats. Having a closed primary effectively cuts more than half of the voters out of the decision.
Let us not forget this system also cuts unaffiliated voters out of the loop entirely in primary season. In Albany County, there are nearly 42,000 of these. And voters discontented with the two major parties may well be dissuaded from joining a third party because they would be giving up an important primary vote.
Perhaps this state of affairs is not so surprising in New York, home of powerful party bosses and the famous “three men in a room” system of governance, which is firmly based on partisanship. Get in line behind a party if you want to be heard, seems to be the message.
What would be refreshing to many, many disenfranchised voters would be the adoption of a semi-closed system in which unaffiliated voters would be allowed to cast votes in a party of their choice on Primary Day. More states participate in a form of this system than have a closed system like New York’s. Other states even let voters choose a party to vote in for the day, regardless of their political affiliation (those rebels!).
This would also make for a healthier partisan atmosphere, freeing party rolls from voters who would prefer to go elsewhere but stay for the power of the vote.
You’d think there would be little hope for such an idea to progress in the Empire State. But we’d remind unaffiliated voters they make up 20 percent of the voter rolls statewide. If united in a demand for more full representation, this would be a powerful voice politicians would ignore at their own peril.
Let your legislator (whoever he or she might be come November) know.
