I get emails nearly every week blaming Hawaii’s problems on foolish voters in a steeply Democratic state who keep returning the same unproductive lawmakers to office.
The truth isn’t that easy; in many elections, voters simply have no credible options beyond the incumbent.
Democratic incumbents, propped up by intimidating special-interest support, often have little or no primary opposition, while a weak local Republican Party fails to field competitive candidates in most general election contests. Most races are settled in Democratic primaries with few choices on the ballot.
New York City has a similar problem of one-party dominance and most races settled in the Democratic primary. A charter commission there is floating a change to make city elections more competitive that would make sense for Hawaii too.
It’s variously called “open” or “top-two” or “jungle” primaries.
Basically, there are no more party primaries, and candidates from all parties and independents run in a single open primary in which all voters can cast ballots. The two top finishers, no matter from which parties, run off in the general election.
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The first major advantage for Hawaii is that it would vastly improve meaningful voter participation by moving the election’s main event from the Democratic primary to the general election.
In last year’s elections, for example, 271,345 voted in the primary election — 199,581 of them in the Democratic primary — while 522,236 cast ballots in the general election, in which there were relatively few competitive local contests left to settle.
In the 25th House District, Kim Coco Iwamoto upset House Speaker Scott Saiki in the Democratic primary by 256 votes out of 5,080 cast, winning the seat outright with no Republican running. Twice as many voters could have participated in the decision if the top two from the primary had carried over to the general election.
With open primaries, we’d see these instances of both candidates in the general election being from the same party. But would voters in the general rather have a choice between two Democrats of vastly different ideologies or no choice at all?
Hawaii Republicans would have to clean up their act if they want to regularly have candidates in the general election, instead of getting automatic spots they didn’t earn. As a practical matter, if Republicans played it smart they’d probably retain most if not all of the legislative seats they hold now under an open primary system.
On the Democratic side, formidable challengers would have far more incentive to run against incumbents, especially in districts where Republicans don’t field competitive candidates, when even a second-place primary finish could get them a hearing before the bigger and more diverse general election voter base.
It would make it easier for independents to run and protect voters against recurring attempts by the Hawaii Democratic Party to control who can run and vote in the Democratic primary.
Versions of open primaries are used in Democratic states like California and Washington, and GOP states like Louisiana and Alaska. They’ve been endorsed locally by Democratic Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke and former Republican Rep. Charles Djou.
What’s not to like about greater political competition and more voter choice?
Reach David Shapiro at [email protected].