TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 7/14/10

ARIZONA OPEN PRIMARIES

• Don't skip primary (The Arizona Republic) One of three Arizona voters is registered as independent. That large swath of Arizonans shouldn't be silent when their voices can make a difference.

ILLINOIS GETS OPEN PRIMARIES

• Illinois Governor Alters an Election Law Bill to Convert Illinois Open Primary Into a Secret Open Primary (Ballot Access News)
• Quinn pushing for open primaries (By Monique Garcia, Chicago Tribune) Quinn has long favored an open primary system, but political parties oppose the move because the primary elections act as a form of membership drive. By requiring voters to declare a political affiliation, political parties can create voter lists used to drive fundraising and guide get-out-the-vote efforts.
• Quinn wants open primaries for Illinois (By BERNARD SCHOENBURG, THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER) Cahnman said voters showed overwhelming support for the idea in a series of local referendums he pushed in 2006 – the biggest margin was 88 percent in favor in Sangamon County’s Clear Lake Township. However, Cahnman also said he thinks getting the General Assembly agree to the change “will be tough.”
• Quinn uses veto to push voter privacy in primaries (BY ABDON M. PALLASCH, Chicago Sun Times) Quinn said the bill will end the era of party bosses being able to check whether voters, and especially government employees, voted in the "right" party's primary
• Quinn uses executive powers to try to open primary voting (By Kerry Lester, Chicago Daily Herald)
• Quinn pushes for open primaries (By Kurt Erickson, Bloomington Pantagraph)
• Quinn uses veto to push for open primaries (Charles Thomas, ABC Chicago)  VIDEO
• Quinn vetoes his way to open primaries (By Ken Lowe, Decatur Herald Review)
• Quinn wants open primaries for Illinois (The Associated Press, Belleville News Democrat)

CONNECTICUT NEEDS OPEN PRIMARIES

• CT: Secretary of State Launches Aggressive Propaganda Campaign Against Political Independence (Damon Eris, Poli-Tea) Connecticut's primary elections are scheduled for August 10, 2010. If recent voter registration trends in the state hold, unaffiliated voters will soon outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans combined. They already constitute the largest bloc of registered voters.

LOUISIANA BRINGS BACK OPEN PRIMARIES

• COMMENTARY: Exorcising Open Primary Superstitions (By Mike Bayham, Huntington News - Louisana) With the stroke of his pen, Governor Bobby Jindal will bring to an end Louisiana’s two-election cycle experiment with closed congressional primary. State party leaders on both sides of the ideological spectrum and sitting members of Congress (for good reason…at least for them) argued for retaining the system; legislators seeking to close a gaping fiscal hole in the state’s finances viewed the closed primary as a luxury expense the state could ill afford. 
• Closed primaries reduces candidates (Capitol News Bureau, Louisiana Politics Blog. By MARSHA SHULER, The Advocate) The closed primary system is unusual in Louisiana, where state and local elections are run on an open primary basis and all candidates regardless of party compete on the same ballot and all voters can participate.

THE PARTIES

• Why Democrats will almost always win (even if they lose badly in November) (BY JOE CONASON, Salon) WARNING: This article, as well as the "study" quoted, only makes sense in a world without an independent movement. Not sure what world that is, but probably exists only in the minds of Dems...

FLORIDA

• Crist leads 3-way Senate race in Florida (By John Whitesides, Reuters) "Generally incumbents have been at a disadvantage this year, but that hasn't been the case with Crist in Florida," Young said. "The move to running as an independent has paid off. He's capturing the middle space," said Ipsos pollster Cliff Young.

NYC CHARTER REVISION

• Nonpartisan Elections: The Dream Dies Again (BY ADAM LISBERG, Daily News/Daily Politics) But nonpartisan elections -- Mayor Bloomberg's dream, the top priority of his friends at the Independence Party, and a book-length subject for his aide Frank Barry -- won't be on the ballot, Goldstein said, because none of the commissioners really seem to care about it.
• Charter Revision Commission zeroes in on ballot questions (Peter N. Spencer, SI Advance)