If the GOP wants to have a closed primary, it doesn’t need permission from the Secretary of State to do that. It doesn’t have to alter what happens at polling places run by the state.
All it has to do is print up and collect its own ballots, which is what it should have been doing all along.
This isn’t rocket science. The party just needs to station a couple of Republicans outside at each polling place. They should have a list of Republicans for that location who were registered by October 6 or some other deadline. If a Republican shows up, he can come over to them and show some kind of ID. If he’s on the list, they can give him a ballot and check him off the list. He can mark his choices and hand the ballot back. Then, the ballots can be collected and counted at the end of the day, and the tallies communicated to party leaders to announce.
(If the weather is awful, an alternate plan could be to have someone outside the polling place let GOP members know that they can cast their ballots at a local Dunkin’ Donuts or some other indoor location. To streamline the process, the party could allow Republicans to download their ballots and have them pre-marked when they show up. Verify your membership, drop your ballot in the box, and be on your way.)
And whatever the state is doing inside the building can be ignored. That is, independents and Democrats can express their preferences to the state about who they think should be the candidate of a party to which they don’t belong. But those preferences would be given all the weight they deserve, which is none at all.
Would this be a perfect system?
No, but it’s a little late in the game to be worrying about that. Next time, with more lead time (and without a chairman who actively tries to undermine party integrity), they can improve the process.
Would this be better than a state-run primary, which encourages non-Republicans to undermine the ability of the GOP to choose the candidate that best represents its values?
Of course, it would. And it’s completely within reach. But they have to start now.
