Open Primaries

Independent voters in Washington DC have an opportunity this November to gain access to the city's most critical elections, the primaries, while also implementing ranked choice voting for all District elections with Initiative 83. 

A poll commissioned by Colorado Voters First shows that a clear majority (56%) of likely voters in Colorado will or probably will support Proposition 131, a measure that would implement a nonpartisan Top 4 primary with ranked choice voting in the general election.

Tusk Ventures Founder and CEO Bradley Tusk has been making his rounds both in the media and with nonpartisan reform groups to discuss his new book, "Vote with Your Phone: Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy," and the need to change incentives in US elections to guarantee less extremism and more accountable representation. 

With the race to Election Day entering the homestretch, the Harris and Trump campaigns are in a full out sprint to reach independent voters, knowing full well that independents have been the deciding vote in every presidential contest since the Obama era. And like clockwork every election season, debates are arising about who independent voters are, whether they matter and even whether they actually exist at all.

Six states plus the District of Columbia will have measures on their November 5 ballots that, if passed, will reform the way public officials are elected in a way that offers more choice to all voters, regardless of political affiliation.

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that voter pamphlet language describing a nonpartisan primary reform initiative as a ranked choice voting initiative can stay.

Former Idaho Attorney General Jim Jones pushed back against claims that nonpartisan open primaries would lead to gun control in a recent op-ed in the Idaho Press – calling it a fear mongering tactic that has no basis in reality.

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters (LVW) of Tennessee and a bipartisan group of voters that challenged a 2023 law that some plaintiffs said intimidated them out of voting in the August primaries.

Nonpartisan reformers know what is coming when they propose changing the way voters elect public officials. Inevitably, those who benefit from the status quo will turn to the courts to prevent voters from having a say.

Tennessee technically has open primaries in which party registration is not required to participate. However, it would be hard to tell under current state law.