Kiesling on Nonpartisan Primaries

Phil Kiesling had a column in yesterday's New York Times advocating the repeal of partisan primaries, instead favoring a qualifying/runoff system. Among his reasons:

...We are left with a system in which almost every state still outsources its elections to what are actually private organizations. With the approval of the Supreme Court, the parties have the authority to exclude independent voters or other non-members who might seriously challenge their partisan shibboleths or taboos.

Some state parties deign to allow non-members to participate in their primaries. But very few independents bother. Most party members don’t, either. In 2006, during the last non-presidential primary cycle, most states had turnouts of only 15 percent to 30 percent of registered voters (New York had less than 5 percent). So far, the 2010 primary cycle has shown a new low of 23 percent in Illinois, and 16.5 percent in Texas, a record high for that state.