There is a lot of talk just now about the difficulties that the GOP is having in keeping its primaries ‘closed’.
If I understand the issue correctly, the party leadership thinks that only people who have registered in advance as Republicans ought to be able to get a GOP ballot on the day of the primary.
The state government thinks that anyone ought to be able to become Republican for a Day™ in order to meddle in the party’s nomination process.
But the very existence of a dispute like this raises an important question: Why does the GOP let the state handle its nomination process? The GOP (like any political party) is a private group. It can and should be setting up and paying for whatever process it wants to use to nominate candidates for office.
This isn’t 1890. It’s not even 1990. There is no reason why the GOP can’t maintain its own membership rolls (instead of delegating that to the state) and use 21st-century technology to poll its members in any way it wants, over any interval it wants (instead of forcing everyone to go to a polling place on an arbitrarily chosen day).
Using the state primary system is like going to McDonald’s every night because you’re too lazy to cook and then complaining about the declining quality and increasing expense of the food.
Also, there are a couple of excellent reasons why the GOP should abandon the traditional primary process altogether.
First, it’s unconstitutional. To see why, imagine the response you’d get from the Secretary of State if you tried to get the state to open polling places, pay employees, and do all the things it does for primary elections… but for the purpose of letting members of your book club vote for the best book of the year.
Probably, he’d just laugh. And then tell you to pound sand because it’s not the state’s job to subsidize elections for private groups. Doing so would violate several articles of the state constitution.
And he’d be justified, right?
Second, it’s just inane to put your group (the GOP) in the hands of an institution (the state government) that actually opposes the goals and principles of that group.
Should you put government in charge of making sure that citizens are armed and trained well enough to resist overreach by the government?
Should you put government in charge of making sure that citizens are educated well enough to resist overreach by the government?
Should you put government in charge of making sure that a political party whose stated purpose is to reduce the size of government can pursue that goal without interference from those who would like to undermine it?
Well, when you put it that way, …
If the GOP wants to keep control of its nomination process, it’s completely within its power to do that. All it has to do is start acting like a private party instead of like a public accommodation.
