TN GOP SEC supports invasive voter pat downs

Don't Touch My Party Junk!

According to a Facebook note posted by Mark Winslow, a resolution is being presented on Saturday when the Tennessee Republican State Executive Committee meets in Nashville advocating that the state move to  ”a system of registration by party and should structure our primaries so the political parties cannot interfere in other parties’ primary elections and county party organization.”

The basis for the argument in support of closed primaries is an assumption that crossover voting with the intent to interfere in another primary is wide-spread across the state.  While there are a few anecdotal instances (see Right at Home’s admission to his own election rigging activities), making the case that crossover voting solely for the purposes of rigging an election to favor a candidate in the general election would be difficult to prove.  I submit that Right at Home is more the exception than the rule; however, State Senator-elect Stacey Campfield thinks differently.  On his blog, he writes:

The Republican SEC is considering a resolution that would advocate closing the Republican primaries. It makes sense to me, the idea of a party primary is to elect the parties nominee who will support and closest represents that parties views, ideas, ideals and goals.

Lately, in some elections, it has turned into an attempt by some minority parties to weaken the opposing parties candidate or to pick a candidate who doesn’t necessarily represent that parties views.

When candidates have challenged election results on these grounds, it is easier to see how opinions from party leaders change from instance to instance based on their desire for a specific outcome, than it is to see that irregular voting with a malicious intent takes place.  For this reason, it is hard for me to believe that this resolution is motivated by a desire to represent the best interests of party primary voters in Tennessee.

In talking about whether primaries should be open or closed, the 2008 primary between Rosalind Kurita and Tim Barnes is most often cited as an example of why primaries should be closed.  Ken Whitehouse, in The City Paper, writes an analysis on August 16, 2008 of the move by the Tennessee Democratic Executive Committee’s decision to throw out the Democratic State Senate primary results between incumbent Rosalind Kurita and Tim Barnes. Kurita won the primary by 19 votes.

Whitehouse ties Barnes’ challenge of Kurita’s nomination to challenges in the Republican primary between Congressman David Davis and Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe for Davis’ 1st District seat.  Roe beat Davis by 486 votes.

Interestingly enough, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, speaking of Davis’ challenge, said that it was a “major mistake” and “you declare the way you are voting when you walk into a voting booth, it would be very hard to prove that there was concerted effort to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary or vice versa. Even if you could prove that, I don’t see it’s illegal.”

Furthermore, in response to Kurita’s ouster by the TNDEC, the Tennessee Republican Party sent out a press release against the actions of the TNDEC, stating that their move was “disenfranchising voters.”  I would assume that in this instance, the TN GOP felt that the motives of voters were pure.

On Sept. 25 , Kleinheider points out in Post Politics that while Barnes’ challenged that Kurita’s nomination was “incurably uncertain” due to alleged crossover voting, Barnes’ own campaign treasurer, a Republican, did just the opposite and crossed over to vote for him.  To this, Barnes said:

“I don’t have a problem with individuals switching primaries based on their personal choices, personal reasons. I certainly had Republican friends voting for me,” Barnes explained. “At issue here was the concerted effort by party leaders, not the choice of individual voters.”

Let me get this straight here.  Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey didn’t think it was prudent to challenge elections based on a claim that voters were being unduly influenced to cross over for their own party’s gain. The TN GOP added that trying to throw out an election on those grounds disenfranchises voters.  Kurita’s challenger, Democrat Tim Barnes, admitted that he sees nothing wrong with voters changing their minds for a primary election, he just doesn’t like there being a concerted campaign to get voters to switch. Glad that I’m clear on this.

Fast forward to July 2010 when Ron Ramsey, now running in the Republican gubernatorial primary, had a change of heart about our primary system.  He was alone among Bill Haslam and Zach Wamp in calling for closed primaries, according to an AP report on July 26 by Erik Schelzig.  Ramsey’s change of opinion was apparently in response to the challenge of a GOP primary ballot cast by Mickey Eldridge in July because a poll worker claimed she had previously voted in Democratic contests.

According to Schelzig, Ramsey “said there could be disingenuous votes cast in the Republican primary because the Democratic gubernatorial nomination is uncontested.”  To this, then Mayor Bill Haslam said, “The law in Tennessee is you don’t register by party, so how do you provide for someone who’s changed their mind in the mean time? If somebody says they want to vote in (either) primary, they should be able to do that.”

An AP report in The Johnson City Press around that time included several statements from Republicans in support of our open primary system in response to the challenge of Eldridge’s ballot.

Cumberland County Mayor Brock Hill, who ran as a Republican in 2006, condemned the decision.

“We really couldn’t believe anyone would do it because it’s an infringement on civil rights,” Hill said. “I’m really embarrassed for the Republican Party here.”

…

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney said in a statement to The Associated Press that while state law allows for what occurred in Crossville, he wants to “encourage all Democrats with good intentions” to vote in GOP primaries.

“Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat and at some point he had to cast his first Republican vote,” he said. “We are confident there will be many converts to the Republican Party this year.”

The AP piece rightly makes the connection between Ramsey’s differing opinions on the issue of open or closed primaries.

The potential challenge of Tennessee’s open primaries was discouraged by Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey of Blountville, who said at the time that it would be “a major mistake.” Ramsey is running for governor this year.

In 2008, Republicans thought so highly of our electoral process and its integrity that they helped Kurita mount a write-in campaign for the general election, but now, party leaders like Campfield are using what happened to Kurita as evidence that the systems needs to be changed. In the same post, Campfield says:

At the state level this threw the Democrat party into chaos when Republicans crossed over and helped in the primary election of Rosaland Kurita but it later put the party in a tough spot when they overturned the primary election results because of her (support of Ron Ramsey?) questionable election results.

Jesse Fox Mayshark in Metro Pulse on Aug. 4, 2010 discusses the complications our our primary voting system.  Mayshark interviewed political analyst Rhodes Cook, who says that open primaries give a very small (maybe 5 points) advantage to candidates who can reach voters outside their base.  He says that the bulk of votes in a primary will come from party members, and it is “a politically popular stance” to have open primaries.  Cook also says, “It’s kind of difficult culturally to move from an open primary to close it.  There’s been more movement in the other direction.”

The change from Tennessee’s current system of open primaries is in the ultimate hands of the General Assembly and Governor-Elect Haslam, and as the resolution mentions, legislation to this effect has been proposed during the last three sessions of the General Assembly.  Will the GA put Haslam in a pickle by sending him a measure that he had previously opposed?  Will the SEC put Devaney in the same bind?

While A.C. Kleinheider on Nov. 2, 2008 in Post Politics writes about Kurita’s ouster, he hits the nail on the head in terms of what, in my opinion, is motivating this resolution by the SEC to close primaries.

While we all like to talk about political parties as though they are about principles and ideas, in the end, parties are just a means to an end. That end, of course, being political power. Parties are not think tanks. They are not universities. They are entities created to achieve electoral victories.  Republicans out of pure political opportunism are helping her as best they can. She is returning the favor. It’s just politics, pure and simple.

I agree.  It is politics, pure and simple.  (No shock there.)  Please do not try to tell me that you have my best interests at heart, because my best interests involve being free to vote for the primary candidate of my choosing without  having someone touch my party junk.