| Mike Schlossberg | Morning Call |
While we’ve made great strides in many ways, our election laws still skew towards disenfranchisement when it comes to participation in primaries. It is time that changed.
Our laws are woefully behind the times when compared with other states. While laws on how primary elections are conducted differ across the country, 14 states require open primaries that encourage independent voter participation, while another 13 states have semi-closed primaries. In other words, a majority of the states in the United States allow for more voter participation than what we currently have in Pennsylvania.
”Away from extremes
Finally — and perhaps most importantly — is allowing independents to vote in primaries may drag us away from extremes. Studies have shown that unaffiliated voters tend to be more moderate and opposed to ideological rigidity. As we have seen of late, far too many facets of our government are enmeshed in an ideological extreme that is woefully disconnected from reality.