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The Great Falls Tribune reported Friday that Montana Republicans filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States to close the June 7 primary to registered party members only. IVN News has long followed efforts by the Republican and Democratic parties to close their primaries and predicted this would happen in early 2015. The Montana GOP's State Central Committee joined the lawsuit challenging Montana's open primary system in January 2015. Under the current system, voters are able to

Many authors and commenters on IVN clearly believe that it is wrong for any party, or any state law, to prevent independent voters from voting in a government-administered primary for public office. I am personally undecided about that issue. It would help me to think clearly about this issue if someone will write an article for IVN that explains the philosophical objections some voters have to being required to join a party before they can vote in its primary for public office. I understand co

NPR and other media outlets have aired interviews with Iowans on why Iowa always gets to go first. Who goes second gets far less coverage, but the same logic presumably applies. If what some Iowans say is representative of at least half of its residents, most are an arrogant bunch. More disturbingly but not surprisingly, Iowans are not logical. The Iowa is Best 'Rationale' Like most empty political rhetoric, there is usually a big disconnect between rhetoric and the real world. The rational f

In recent news, Ohio state officials told Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley that he could not be on the Democratic primary ballot. The petition to be on the ballot required 1,000 valid signatures from a single county. O’Malley submitted 1,175, but only 772 were considered valid. Both of his fellow Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, are on the ballot. Presidential primaries are often reserved only for partisan candidates, but that does not nec

The fact that Virginia’s Republican Party wants voters to take a Party loyalty oath as a condition of voting in the publicly-funded and administered presidential primary shouldn’t surprise anyone. In Utah, the Republican Party recently closed their previously open primary through a legal challenge. In doing so, the Republicans relied on precedent set by the Democratic Party in the Jones case from California 15 years ago. It's the same precedent that is being argued in Montana, Hawaii, New Mex

Channel 9 in Oklahoma City reported Tuesday that the state's Republican Party decided not to let independent voters participate in its primary elections in 2016. This means that if independent voters want to participate in the first stage of the public election process (i.e. taxpayer-funded election process) the only option they have is the Democratic ballot. "As of last month, Oklahoma had 261,199 registered independent voters, or about 13 percent of the state's 1.9 million registered voters,"

KXLH, a local news station in central Montana, reported Monday that the Montana Republican Party's lawsuit to close its taxpayer-funded primary elections is headed to trial after a ruling from a federal judge. The judge, however, refused to block the use of open primaries in June until the issue is resolved. KXLH reports: th The party argues that its constitutional right of association is being violated because non-Republican voters "cross over" and try to influence the outcome in legislative

"This is not a day care. This is a university!" This was the reaction from the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Dr. Everett Piper, in response to a student's complaint about a sermon he had delivered on the topic of love. The student, Dr. Piper wrote, said he felt "victimized" by the sermon because he was made to feel guilty about not showing enough love toward others. "Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic," Piper says. "Any time their fe

In a state of over 38 million people, Californians – as well as the rest of the U.S. – have come to rely inextricably upon the capabilities of modern telecommunications technologies. Whether it’s your smartphone accessing the cloud to download the latest cat video, taking an online class in a virtual classroom, or launching another tech startup, the tech industry lends itself to almost every aspect of daily life. Likewise, in California alone, the information and communication technologies indu

For nearly two hundred years, voting has predominantly been tied to fixed residency: citizens are entitled to vote in the districts in which they live. While seemingly a fair and direct application of the principle, "one person, one vote," property owners are beginning to assert that their ownership of property in voting districts outside the one in which they live justifies extending them the right to vote in these districts as well. So, does the right to vote – and should the right to vote –