Yet Another "Open" Primary Proposal

With that supposed Open Primary proposal being passed as part of the budget deal yesterday, I wondered if this would be any different than the other ones we've dealt with. The San Francisco Chronicle explains a bit about the issue.

It sounds to me like we've already been there and done this, with the Blanket Primary we had years ago being ruled unconstitutional and the other one rejected by voters.

It makes no sense to me to have an election where voters pick one candidate out of between 3 to god knows how many choices. So, you go to fill out your ballot in the primary. You might have two democrats, two republicans and one or two third party candidates. You can only vote for one.

That limits your choices. It doesn't increase them.

Then you might likely end up in the general election in a race where your choice might be two democrats or two republicans. Once again, this limits your choices.

I might actually not have too much of a problem with an open primary where voters could take their pick among all the parties' candidates. For instance, one where you could pick the democrat you liked best, your favorite Republican and even a third party candidate. That might better establish a consensus on candidates and still allow multiple choices in the general election.

But this latest open primary proposal stinks just like the last two. Those were dumb ideas back then just like this latest one is a dumb idea now.