PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The debate about who should — or shouldn’t — be allowed to vote in Pennsylvania primary elections has been going on for years. Five former Pennsylvania governors have come together to argue in favor of open primaries.
More than 1 million registered voters in Pennsylvania cannot vote in primaries because they are registered as independent or unaffiliated.
Republicans Tom Corbett, Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker, as well as Democrats Ed Rendell and Tom Wolf, are throwing their support behind repealing the state’s closed primaries.
They signed a letter on ballotpa.org — a Committee of Seventy project — stating that as the number of registered Democrats and Republicans continues to shrink, candidates are elected by more extreme voters and have less incentive to compromise.
There has been public support for open primaries. While party leaders have been hesitant to embrace the change, it could actually help them.
“The parties might benefit on occasion,” said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, “and we’ve seen — at least in its modern version — the Republican Party struggle in statewide races often because its candidates are seen as too extreme.
“[Parties] worry that the type of control they may have over the electoral process would be undermined in some ways by having voters outside the party enter their ranks.”
Independent voters pay taxes to fund primaries but can’t participate. The former governors say the move could bring more independents back into the parties, giving them a chance to “try before you buy.”
There are bills in both the state House and Senate to allow independent or unaffiliated voters to take part in primary elections, but they have been sitting in each chamber’s state government committee since April, despite 14 senators and 11 state representatives signing onto the bills.