Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser is calling on the Louisiana Legislature to pass a bill returning all Louisiana elections to the open primary system.
Under a new law, this year's congressional and Public Service Commission elections as well as next year's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will be held under closed party primary systems. Nungesser told the Baton Rouge Press Club that closed primaries not only cause confusion for voters, but they also cost the state more money than open primaries.
"This closed primary is costing Louisiana a little more than $17 million, and people are confused of who can vote where and what, and that's going to be every year if we stay with closed primaries--or every election. So I'm hoping after this year we can go back and change that," Nungesser said.
Nungesser also claimed that closed primaries lead to fewer people casting ballots.
"Nobody votes in the primary because you know if it's a Republican (district) or a Democratic district, you know they're going to win it, and nobody goes into the general election," Nungesser said. "I think it's a little un-American. One man, one vote: what happened to that?"
According to recent polling, voters agree with Nungesser's sentiments: they want open primary elections in Louisiana.
"They've remained overwhelmingly popular the three times I've run this poll," John Couvillon, founder of JMC Analytics said. "(Voters have) remained consistent in support of . . . the open primary system."
Couvillon says Louisiana voters support the open primary system for a variety of reasons. First, he says, they're familiar with it because the state has operated under that system since 1975. Secondly, Couvillon said his polls found that Louisiana voters prefer to be politically independent.
""Voters in Louisiana as well as across the national are beginning to de-align themselves from the major parties, which means that the idea of having partisan primaries is appealing to a shrinking number of people because, of course, more and more people would rather be unaffiliated than allied with one of the two major parties," Couvillon said.
However, Couvillon says he's hedging his bets that lawmakers would approve a bill that would revert congressional, Public Service Commission, and BESE elections to open primaries. According to Couvillon, such a bill--and Governor Jeff Landry signing that bill--would be an implicit admission that they were wrong about closed primaries working in the state.
