End the lockout of Florida’s 3.4 million independent voters
Over the past year, Floridians have shown an outpouring of support for getting rid of our state’s closed system of elections and embracing open primaries. This week the Constitution Revision Commission can take another step toward making that a reality — if its members listen to the voters and support moving the open primary proposal introduced by Commissioner William Schifino forward to a vote of the full commission.
The 2016 presidential primaries brought into clear focus how “rigged” our election system is, particularly against the 45 percent of Americans who consider themselves independents. Nowhere is that more clear than right here in Florida, which has the dubious distinction of being one of only nine closed primary states. The 2016 primaries left Florida’s 3.4 million independent voters locked out and mad as hell.
Fast forward to when the Constitution Revision Commission, a body that convenes every 20 years to put proposed amendments to our constitution before voters, began its work by holding public hearings around the state.
My organization, Florida Fair and Open Primaries, co-sponsored a poll with the national organization Open Primaries to better understand how the people of Florida felt about our current system of closed party elections. What we found was shocking.
An overwhelming majority (92 percent) of Florida voters want their elected officials to put the interests of Florida voters ahead of the interests of their own political party. They (93 percent) want their elected leaders to bring opposing interests together to create good policies for the state, and 87 percent support electoral changes that expand democracy in Florida.
An astonishing 74 percent of Floridians want independent voters (27 percent of the Florida electorate) included in primary elections. Equally significant, 73 percent of Floridians, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents, think the CRC should put an open-primaries initiative before the voters.
With such results in hand, we began soliciting people to speak directly to the commission in support of open primaries. To our surprise, dozens of people we never spoke to showed up at nine public hearings to speak out. More than 75 open-primaries supporters provided the commission with more than two hours of testimony — making open primaries one of the leading issues raised by the people of Florida before the CRC.
So many people reached out in support that we launched a petition with our national partner so that the many Floridians who hadn’t been able to attend a hearing could have a voice. That petition currently has 9,400 signatures in support of the open-primaries proposal. Hundreds more voters have sent personal cards, letters and emails in support as well.
On Oct. 4, the CRC Ethics and Elections Committee heard from three separate county supervisors of elections. They all agreed on three things: The number of registered independent voters in our state is exploding (in fact, in some counties independents are the second-largest group of voters); closed primaries are a significant source of voter confusion; and voters are upset. All three are clearly connected.
As the supervisors also noted, primaries have notoriously low turnout, yet they determine the eventual winner in 90 percent of races nationwide. Only 16 percent of Florida races were competitive in 2016. Due to a number of factors, primaries have become the most meaningful step in selecting our representatives, yet 3.4 million Floridians are still locked out of the process.
Voter affiliation in our state is changing rapidly, and our current system of primary elections that divide voters into Democrats and Republicans alone no longer represents us. It’s clear what the voters of Florida want. And it’s clear that the CRC needs to act if it’s going to hold itself out as representing the will of the people. As such, we urge the Ethics and Elections Committee to accept Schifino’s proposal this week and to forward it, with unanimous support, to the full commission for consideration.
Put the open primaries proposal on the November ballot, and let the voters decide.