Open primaries threaten our constitutional rights

The League of Women Voters and a well-heeled PAC dubbed “All Voters Vote” are attempting to trample the rights of 9.8 million Floridians. That’s how many Floridians are currently members of political parties — Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Green Party members, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and so on.

The League and its allies want to change the Florida Constitution to force these political parties to open their primary elections to non-members.

In the words of the proposed amendment, “all electors registered to vote for the office being filled shall be allowed to vote in the primary election.”

In other words, Republicans could choose Democratic candidates, Democrats could choose Republican candidates, Socialists could choose Libertarian candidates.

If this all sounds a bit nonsensical, it is. A primary is not a general election. It is the means by which members of political association choose a candidate to run in a general election.

On its website, even the League of Women Voters recognizes that “primaries first began” because party members — rather than party bosses — ” wanted a larger say in who would be chosen as their candidate” to run in the general election.

The proposed constitutional amendment seeks to abolish the ability of rankand-file members of political associations to choose their candidates for the general election, replacing it instead with a tworound general election. “The primary election” would become the first round and the traditional election day would become the run-off between the first round’s top finishers.

The League and its allies offer no good explanation as to why we should have a two-round general election, as opposed to one, three, or five rounds. They simply want to abolish party primaries.

The League also offers no explanation as to why Floridians should lose their right to freely associate with a political party. That makes their proposal not just nonsensical, but a threat to our constitutional rights.

The United States Supreme Court has held that “implicit in the right to engage in activities protected by the First Amendment” is “a corresponding right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political … ends.” This freedom to associate can be violated, the Court has said, when the government intrudes “into the internal structure or affairs of an association” by, for example, “forc[ing] the group to accept members it does not desire.”

That’s precisely what the proposed amendment will do — force political associations to accept nonmembers as voters in their intra-party elections.

The supporters of this proposed amendment falsely claim that voters who don’t affiliate with a party are somehow disenfranchised by the primary system. The All Voters Vote PAC, for example, says, on its website, “current Florida law prohibits most voters from voting in the elections that will determine who serves in our legislature, cabinet, and as our governor.”

That’s just not so: every eligible voter in Florida may vote in the general election. If an unaffiliated voter — and only a quarter of all registered voters are unaffiliated — generally doesn’t like who the parties select as their candidates, he or she has many options: band together with other like-minded citizens to form a new political party and nominate a candidate; help someone qualify as an NPA candidate (far easier than winning a party primary); vote for a qualified write-in candidate; or even run for office.

What one citizen should not be able to do, however, is tell another citizen that he or she cannot associate politically with others to support candidates of their choosing.

The supporters pushing this draconian measure are misrepresenting the radical way in which it will strip Floridians of their rights. The proposed ballot summary does not inform voters that the amendment will fundamentally alter the meaning of “primary” — the one the voters have understood for decades. It does not plainly inform voters that party primaries will be abolished and they will no longer have the traditional means of nominating party candidates. And it does not inform voters that the new constitutional language would drastically curtail rights currently protected by the Florida Constitution —“the liberty of speech” and “the right to peaceably assemble.”

Last week, Attorney General Ashley Moody submitted the proposed ballot question to the Florida Supreme Court for review. By law, the Court is required to ensure that the ballot title and summary are not misleading. The Attorney General should submit a brief explaining that the proposed ballot title and summary are grossly misleading, and the Florida Supreme Court should prohibit the question from appearing on the 2020 ballot.

The free association rights of millions of Floridians hang in the balance.

By Jesse Panuccio