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Q&A
Commissioner Julie Samuels and Susan Lerner discuss potential impacts of open primaries on voter turnout, citing Colorado's experience
2:12:27
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91 sec
Commissioner Julie Samuels asks Susan Lerner if implementing one of the versions of open primaries might depress voter turnout. Lerner discusses Colorado's experience with semi-open primaries, implemented in 2018, where an unaffiliated voter could choose which party's primary to vote in.
Lerner notes that Colorado saw an initial narrowing of the gap between primary and general election turnout by about 7%, but results varied in subsequent election years. Generally, Colorado is seeing higher turnout, but voters there recently rejected a top-four primary measure in favor of keeping their semi-open system.
Julie Samuels
2:12:27
Thank you both.
2:12:27
Susan, I just want to dig in for one more second.
2:12:30
Do you think that if we were to do open primaries, one of these versions, obviously there's lot of permutations, and I think your point about the ballots is a very good one.
2:12:40
Do you think it might depress turnout?
Susan Lerner
2:12:44
Well, I mean, in Colorado, what we saw was the first Colorado in 2018 for the first time had what we call semi open primaries.
2:12:54
Right?
2:12:55
They had a closed primary system.
2:12:57
And then they went to a system where an unaffiliated voter could come in and decide which primary to vote in.
2:13:03
They saw a bump up of approximately the difference between the primary turnout and the general turnout narrowed by about 7%.
2:13:15
But then they had a different result in different election years.
2:13:20
Generally, they are seeing a higher turnout.
2:13:22
And it's interesting that Colorado voters presented with a top four, I believe, measure on the ballot in November chose not to change the semi open primary and rejected the top four change.
2:13:38
Turnout is a very complicated issue.
2:13:42
It has a lot of permutations.
2:13:44
And that's why we have been such strong proponents for the even year consolidation because it's the one thing where we can see consistently cycle after cycle after cycle there is a larger turnout.