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Q&A

Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. questions Professor Jen Gaboury on the impact of open primaries on voter turnout

0:30:05

·

123 sec

Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. asks Professor Jen Gaboury to clarify how opening the primary system to currently non-affiliated voters (around 20% of the electorate) could depress turnout.

Professor Gaboury explains that it can depress turnout by skewing races depending on the population, leading to less competitive contests in certain areas.

  • She argues that individuals should organize within parties to effect change or form new parties if dissatisfied, rather than allowing non-members to influence a party's selection process.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:30:05
I have just a quick question for professor Gab Gabboure.
0:30:09
Sorry.
0:30:10
I just wanna clarify I just wanna see if you can clarify something for me.
0:30:14
I think part of the premise one of the arguments for having a different primary system is the one that Ms.
0:30:21
Stall just articulated that currently there are 20% of voters who are not registered to a party, if I have my math right, and therefore cannot currently participate in a primary that's currently organized.
0:30:34
So how is it that allowing those 20% of of non of registered but non party affiliated voters to vote, how could that reduce it's been very counterintuitive that opening up the primary system to a million new voters would depress turnout.
0:30:52
I'm not sure I understand.
Jen Gaboury
0:30:54
It depresses turnout because, in fact, it skews, like, races from one side to another depending on the population.
0:31:01
If independent voters like, I'm a disaffected Democrat, and I try to skew try to push within my party to organize for the party to go in a particular direction, and there's various vehicles through that.
0:31:12
I'm a pretty unhappy Democrat, but I do that work.
0:31:15
I do that organizing work.
0:31:16
Andrew Cuomo has shown us several things.
0:31:18
One of them is that it's really easy to put together a party.
0:31:21
So one of the things I would say to independent voters is you should put together a party in a system that is dominated by, in fact, parties through systems of organization.
0:31:30
I think that if we are going to have parties and parties like, this is not a proposal to abolish political parties.
0:31:37
If you were so you either have to, like, work through political parties, right, as things that are meaningful in as forms of representation or not.
0:31:45
Opening up a system to say, like, that independents can vote in this way means that other people then skew the race that is that it that is a form of, like, membership and selection.
0:32:01
I like, I have say a Democrat, right, because that is meaningful to me, and I want to choose someone to represent a group of people.
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