NEW YORK CITY - Last week in Staten Island, the NYC Charter Revision Commission held its next-to-last public hearing. As Commissioner Diane Savino commented, addressing NYC's closed primary system “is the single biggest issue we’ve heard this year.”
The hearing was a clash between establishment opponents of reform (who have been hiding behind the age-old tactics of “more study needed” and “unintended consequences" since 1998!) and independent leaders and voters who are urging the Commission to let a million independents fully participate.
You get a great sense of “let us vote vs. we need more time to study” tension in an interchange between Cathy Stewart, National Organizing Director at Open Primaries and an advocate for primary reform in NYC for over 20 years, and Susan Lerner, the Executive Director of Common Cause NY, who urged the commission to take a pass.
And earlier in the week, dozens of NYC unions penned an open letter to the commission claiming that letting one million independent voters (50% of whom are people of color) participate in primaries would “reduce the life chances of working-class Black people and other working-class people of color.”
Letting more people of color vote hurts…. people of color?
Commissioner Buery addressed the naysayers by remarking that “we know this issue has already been considered by numerous Charter Revision Commissions over the years. It's actually been put on the ballot before."
There is also a risk that you could take more time and never have a Commission that’s willing to put this on the ballot again. I think there are risks in every process. I do think this is on our agenda not by design but because we heard tons of people who want it on our agenda, it would seem disrespectful not to consider those voters.”
Other highlights:
- Deborah Green from Queens spoke about her experience as an independent forced to reregister into the Democratic Party to cast a meaningful vote. She quoted from the Manhattan Institute’s Issue Brief, New York City Voters Have an Appetite for Electoral Reform Polling and Analysis. Their polling found that 23% of registered Democrats cite their main reason for affiliating with the Democratic Party was in order to vote in the primary. This number doubled from 2024.
- David Cherry, Open Primaries Board Member and President of the Leader’s Network in Chicago, spoke about his experience growing up in NY where independents are barred from voting in primaries and moving to Chicago with a nonpartisan system. David shared, “This system doesn’t automatically solve all of our problems. We still have to fight and advocate for the issues we care about. But the important thing it does is allow new opportunities to create new coalitions with new people.” Commissioner DaBaron picked up on David’s testimony and said, “I just want to highlight one thing which I made a note of which is that idea of new coalitions with new people. That really stands out to me.”
- Eric Bronner from Veterans for All Voters talked about the number of veterans in NYC who are independents (65,000) and his experience in St. Louis in passing a nonpartisan primary system with approval voting. Under the new system, passed in 2020 by the voters of St. Louis, the city elected its first African American woman as mayor, and the first woman elected as president of the Board of Aldermen.
- Also last week, Murat Akaydin, a US Army veteran and NYC activist from Veteran for All Voters authored an editorial in The Chief titled The New York primary system is leaving too many behind and Chris Kasker, retired US Army Lt Colonel penned an op-ed in the Albany Times Union: Commentary: New York should switch to open primaries, because voting shouldn’t be partisan.
The Commission has one final hearing in Harlem on July 7. Don’t miss your chance to weigh in. You can find out more about testifying by emailing Cathy Stewart at cstewart@openprimaries.org. Take a moment and add your name to the Letter to the Charter Revision Commission and share it with your friends and family.
Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in the Open Primaries weekly newsletter, "Primary Buzz," on June 27, 2025, and has been edited for publication on IVN.