Category: open primaries

The estimated cost for Tuesday’s primary elections in Pennsylvania is around $75 million for state and local governments. It’s a large price tag, especially since it is being paid for by voters who are denied the right to participate.

A bill that would open Pennsylvania primary elections to over 1.4 million registered independent voters, HB 280, cleared its first major hurdle to becoming law this week when it cleared the House State Government Committee.

The New York City Charter Revision Commission, convened by Mayor Eric Adams, released a preliminary report last week in which it states it is considering two potential reforms to city primary elections that exclude a fifth of the city's electorate. 

Independent voters will finally have access to taxpayer-funded primary elections in New Mexico after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed SB 16 into law. Primary reform advocates are now celebrating a win that was several years in the making.

New York City has a massive voter suppression problem. A new report from the NYC Campaign Finance Board (CFB) found that 1-in-5 voters (21.1%) in the city are registered unaffiliated and are excluded from taxpayer-funded primary elections.

Pennsylvania Voters First, a project of Unite America, announced new poll data that found strong majorities among Pennsylvanians that believe the state's 1.4 million independent voters should have access to taxpayer-funded primary elections.

A new report from the Unite America Institute reveals a sobering truth about American democracy: in most elections, the vast majority of votes cast have zero influence on the outcome.

Election reformers are celebrating the adoption of primary elections in New Mexico that are open to the state's substantial independent voter population. But there is an even larger group of independents that could soon be granted access to these critical taxpayer-funded elections in Pennsylvania.

KOAT 7 in New Mexico featured an investigative report on the impact of open primaries now that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed SB 16 into law, a bill that opens the state's primaries to more than 330,000 independent voters.

As of Monday, New Mexico has officially moved away from closed partisan primaries and has adopted semi-open primaries that allow more than 330,000 independent voters to participate in critical taxpayer-funded elections after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed reform into law.