LA GOP does better by keeping primaries closed

While an interesting proposal that Louisiana Republicans should allow anyone not affiliated with another party to vote in its primary elections for federal office, from the party’s perspective it is better to leave the rules allowing only registered Republicans to vote.

Louisiana law allows parties the option of opening up their primaries for federal office to no-party (independent) registrants. When the law first went onto the books over a year ago, the GOP announced Republicans only could participate, while Democrats said independents could participate with their partisans in their primaries. This means, as of now, the only such primary elections in which independents may participate are the Democrats.

A GOP official has proposed allowing in independents. “You are ignoring a large group of conservative independents,” State Central Committee member Mike Bayham argued. “They are part of the party's voter base. We need to do everything we can to keep them.”

But the facts nor reasoning here are quite accurate. First, voting participation statistics show independents are the least likely to vote. Among whites, there was an 18 point gap in turnout for the 2008 presidential elections Republican to independent (at 57 percent). And from what we know about the nature of ideological identification and participation in politics, those who are more ideological on both ends of the spectrum, including conservatives who would be expected to vote Republican and therefore in that primary, are more likely to vote. So it’s debatable that there are a significant number of active conservatives among independents, or else there would be a higher rate of voting.

Let’s hypothesize, however, that there is a core group of some significant size that offsets what therefore must be truly lackadaisical interest among the rest. (After all, widely syndicated radio talk show host Moon Griffon publicly announced his switch from Republican to no party as a sign of disgust at too many elected Republicans doing too many non-conservative things too often.) The theory would be that these voters would be shut out of a process that, with their inclusion, could produce more conservative candidates for the party. In Louisiana for the majority of districts and statewide, that means more electable candidates since these nominees will activate conservatives to vote and there are many more of them than liberals.

However, that view ignores that more moderate independents – and research shows the majority of independents identify as moderates – also could influence nominations. Even if the conservatives would participate at higher rates, the sheer amount of moderates favoring them might mean introducing more of them into the primary process, decreasing the chances of nominating conservatives that can win.

Besides the empirical evidence, there is a philosophical objection as well. By allowing independents to participate, the organization retards its party-building efforts. Research shows that voting for a party’s candidate is habit-forming stemming principally from efforts to increase adoption of a party label. The most powerful way to encourage adoption of a label is to provide a reward by identifying and/or a penalty for failure to do so. Allowing only party members to participate in primaries accomplishes precisely this. Why should anybody who already can participate as an independent go to the effort to change their registration to GOP? They would get all the benefits of the label already. Changing usually occurs only when a person feels sufficiently moved, but for some the prodding needs to be sterner, i.e. not allowing to participate those feeling closer affinity to the GOP unless they switch. Simply, the more people are encouraged (by avoiding the penalty of nonparticipation) to join the party, the more reliably they’ll vote for the party.

(This benefit extends beyond federal contests. It also would spill over into state and local elections where there are blanket primaries so while nomination is irrelevant, increased recruitment into the Republican label also would like create more voters for GOP state and local candidates.)

In addition, keeping the current rule is akin to having a strong hand in poker and raising the stakes. Understand the reason why Louisiana Democrats allow independents to participate is because they are operating from a position of weakness. Research shows independence is a label often adopted by voters making a transition from one party to another. In Louisiana, those going from Democrat to Republican far outnumber the reverse. Democrats want to hang onto those attitudinally moving away from them by allowing them the privilege of not being Democrats yet permitting them to participate in the most important decision a party can make, who its candidates are to be. It is scared of losing them, reconciling itself to letting unreliable voters for it decide its nominations. Republicans don’t have to settle for that; they can swing for the fences with conversion of independents into Republicans by withholding the privilege of selecting candidates to those not willing to adopt their label.

In fact, there is only one practical reason, given the objective conditions of the state parties, for this change that could benefit the GOP: it might slice some independents out of the Democrats’ primaries which could cause them to select a more liberal nominee, and thus one usually easier to defeat. Yet given the other philosophical and practical reasons above, on balance the party’s electoral chances probably are harmed by this change. If Republicans want to continue to have the success they enjoyed in Louisiana federal elections in 2008, keeping their primaries closed probably does better at achieving this.