California Proposition 14 – A No Vote if there ever was one
Imagine two rival Football teams that have to vote for their Quarterbacks. One team, A, puts up only one choice for Quarterback while the other team, B,has two contenders: one who has trained and put on the weight and another who read about it in books but lacks practical training and weight. However, it is somehow agreed to that the members of one team can vote for the contender of the other team if they want instead of their own.
Now, who do you think the members of A will vote for? Obviously, they could vote for their own Quarterback, but they already know he will win. So naturally, members of team A will cast votes for the Quarterback of team B. After all, they want to participate in the process, right? So, which Quarterback will they vote for? The one with training or the one who merely thinks he can do it? If the choice is not obvious: which one would you vote for if you knew it would give your team a better chance to win?
Open primaries are very similar. They are not the game itself, they are not where two teams battle it out for the victory. They are meant as a means for each team to vote for who it thinks is the best contender; candidate, within the team. While an Open Primary sounds great (”increases voter participation”) it misses the point: it is not for those outside the team to decide who the team members are they compete against but the team itself. Certainly more people will come out to vote if they would otherwise have not due to a lack of competition within their own party.
The primary merely decides who will be representing the team, not the victorious team itself. So if you are going to allow open primaries, you may as well eliminate the primary completely and save tax payers money.
The last effect this would have is simple: you could disenfranchise members of a political party by creating a situation where two candidates from the same party which, I imagine, is the ultimate goal: by professing to increase voter choices, they in truth limit voter choices.
Vote No on Proposition 14.