There was a group discussion on Friday with some claiming the change in Democratic Party rules allowing NPA and IND voters was a good idea. I decided to pull up the 2017 statewide voter file and see for myself if my gut feelings were right.
I have never considered the experiment to allow independent voters a well thought out plan and the statewide numbers are proving it out.
This data is from the statewide late 2017 TotalVote file I am able to work with.
In 2012 IND and NPA voters were allowed to start voting in Democratic Primaries. The idea of allowing IND and NPA voters to have a voice in Dem Primary’s primary has been a failure. It has encouraged Dems to change their registration and still vote in primary. It is a loser’s mentality. A reason Mike Huether changed to IND?
The real proof of this being a bad decision is borne out in the 2016 election. As contentious as the primary was, it did not bring any additional voters to the process. I remember many voters being confused. A few asked me in 2016 if voting in the Facebook polls counted in the primary between Clinton and Sanders.
We can talk about this in more detail but the numbers show a time and election experiment failure. Instead of tearing the party structure apart, isn’t it time to actually build something?