“The ballot got flipped upside down on me. I wasn’t even allowed to look at it,” Bohlken said, noting that the two apologetic poll volunteers — his friends — were just doing their jobs. “That kind of made me feel bad.”
Closed Primaries Shut Out Millions of Voters
There's a fantastic new piece circulating in several major newspapers across the country. It dives deep on the real story of independents. One of the key findings: in about 33% of state legislative districts in closed primary states, excluded independents have no say in their representation.
Open Primaries' own Jeremy Gruber is quoted as well:
“There's a country where when you vote in the general election, half the time there's only one person on the ballot. Almost every time it's an uncompetitive election, and half the voters in the country are barred from the first round or limited,” Gruber said. “And even the voters that can participate are segregated into warring camps. People would say, ‘Well, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't sound democratic.’
“‘Where is that? What strange country has that system?’ But that's us. That's our system.”