Monthly Archive for October, 2011

As our esteemed secretary of state has often stated in the media… technically, we already have a “closed primary” in Rhode Island. Current practice already limits voting in the Republican Party Primary to “Republican affiliated voters.” Therefore, the title of the Providence Journal article “RI Republicans consider limiting primaries to GOP voters” — while not technically false — does not convey the whole story. It would be tantamount to stating that a particular brand of bottled water is “now made with zero cholesterol” … even though it never had any in it to begin with. What we are ultimately trying to do via a party rule change, is to move the date by which a “potential Republican voter” would have to “affiliate” with the party; not whether unaffiliated/independent voters can in fact affiliate and “become Republicans.” We welcome independents to become Republicans (and even a few Democrats)… we’d just like to know about you a little bit ahead of time.

The crux of the problem [for the Rhode Island Republican Party] at present is that “unaffiliated” voters can affiliate and vote as “Republicans” on the same day as the Republican Party Primary. They can then immediately disaffiliate from the party — and they usually do just that. Based on analysis of previous elections, there is little likelihood of those voters [intentionally] remaining party members after the primary election. Remember, the only legal purpose of a primary election is to choose the party’s candidates to represent it in the general election. It is not supposed to be about “party building” or anything of the sort. Quite clearly, it has not been about party building over the past several decades, as our party registration numbers have decreased in Rhode Island. Coming from a life-long Republican, I can honestly say that there really is not a logical reason at present why anyone not truly committed to the ideals or principles of the Republican Party should want to remain on the rolls of the party here; if they get can have all the benefits of participation, without any of the responsibilities of membership.

The specific amendment to the RIGOP Bylaws which was officially read on Monday night [at the meeting of the Rhode Island Republican State Central Committee] would require primary voters to become affiliated with the Republican Party 90 days before a primary election in order to vote in the Republican primary. This is actually the very same rule which already applies to Democrats who want to become “unaffiliated” for the specific purpose of voting in the Republican Primary (cough, Linc Chafee, cough). That would mean that they would need to know that they are going to vote in the Republican primary about two weeks before the official filing deadline for candidates  in June, not after they already know the field. We don’t think that’s a whole lot to ask of our voters, and especially of our “Republican” candidates.

We [the proponents of this amendment] believe that if this change is passed on November 16th, that there would be far less chance of last-minute, highly organized efforts by Democrats and their organized labor allies to manipulate low turnout primary races. Despite what some in the media would have you believe, we are not nearly as worried about the “big” races (like a certain Congressional race which shall remain nameless), but more about R.I. General Assembly and municipal-level races, where the results in party primaries are often decided by a handful of votes. We have had multiple and repeated organized efforts to “bump off” viable GOP candidates at the primary level. Regardless as to whether their efforts actually succeed (depending on how one defines that), it costs good Republican candidates time, money, and labor that could be better spent elsewhere identifying likely voters. We should not intentionally leave ourselves so vulnerable to outside manipulation.

The primary benefit (bad pun) to the Republican Party of changing the current party rules would be to let us know who is truly eligible and likely to vote in the primary before it occurs, so that we can better target our limited resources towards “likely primary voters” for that specific purpose. We realistically cannot target over half the state’s voters for a primary. Secondly, we believe that this move would actually encourage unaffiliated voters to “make the switch” and register with the Republican Party and help increase party registration over time, especially if they know they have to in order to participate in the primary selection process. It would clearly be up to the party to educate voters of this change, if and when it is approved. The party has suffered from bad “P.R.” in the past. That does not mean it has to in the future. The threat that this would be a “bad P.R. move” is laughable on its face. If we have the right message and the right candidates, people should actually want to be “party members” for more than 90 seconds. We don’t need “hit and run” voters without allegiance to the party choosing our candidates.

P.S. Before you ask… there is ample U.S. Supreme Court precedent which backs up the premise that political parties have the fundamental, constitutional “freedom of association” and the right to determine their own rules for for choosing candidates… or even whether to have primaries at all. We are quite certain that we have the law on our side. The question would really need to be asked, if the amendment is approved, and the secretary of state did choose to challenge it, why he would waste taxpayer funds to do that?