Cross-posted from 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. According to Pollster.com, as of late last year, independents accounted for 42.5% of registered voters in the state, with only 36.8% registered Democrat and 20% registered Republican. . . .
Connecticut has closed primaries. Thus, almost half of all registered voters will be ineligible to vote in the major party primaries, whose nominees will therefore be decided by a fraction of a fraction of registered voters. The Democratic and Republican nominees for numerous offices will be lucky to garner the support of even 10% of registered voters in their respective primary races. In such a situation, the fiction that the Democratic and Republican parties are capable of providing representative government to the people of Connecticut can no longer be maintained, if only because the people clearly no longer subscribe to that particular fiction. Rather than vote with their feet, or even their ballots, they are voting with their registration cards. Advocates of open primaries may find fertile ground in the Constitution State.
Rather than open the primary system, however, Connecticut’s political establishment has instead chosen to begin brow beating voters to register with the Democratic and Republican parties. Late last week, Democratic Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz held a press conference (.pdf) with leaders of the state’s Democratic and Republican party establishment to demand that voters give up their independent affiliations and enroll in the Democratic and Republican parties ahead of the primaries. From the press release:
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz today urged unaffiliated voters across the state to enroll with the Democrat or Republican Party by August 9th at 12:00 p.m. so they can vote in the statewide primaries Tuesday August 10, 2010. Connecticut’s closed party system does not allow unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in the primaries, therefore unaffiliated voters must enroll as either Democrats or Republicans to cast a ballot in the primaries.
“I urge Connecticut’s 840,000 unaffiliated voters – the largest group of our state’s nearly two million active registered voters – to enroll with the Democratic or Republican parties so they can cast ballots and make sure their voices are heard in the primaries,” said Secretary Bysiewicz. “The 2010 election cycle is one of the most exciting we have seen in a long time in Connecticut, with many open seats and closely contested primaries on the Democratic and Republican side for Governor, U.S. Senator and many other important offices. Don’t let this chance to help choose leaders of our state and country pass you by. Affiliate by August 9th at 12:00 p.m. so you can and participate in the primaries August 10th!”
At a news conference in Hartford, Secretary Bysiewicz was joined today by Connecticut Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo and Connecticut Republican Party Vice Chair Catherine Marx, Tony Esposito, President of the Registrars of Voters Association, and representatives from the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, the Connecticut Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the African American Affairs Commission, and the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission.
To get the message out to voters, Secretary Bysiewicz has been engaged in a public awareness effort to get unaffiliated voters to enroll as Democrats or Republicans through Public Service Announcements on radio and television, and newspaper Op-Eds, meetings with Editorial Boards, radio and television interviews throughout the state.
In other words, the Connecticut Secretary of State has begun an aggressive and wide-ranging propaganda campaign aimed at cajoling voters, who obviously know better, into supporting the Democratic-Republican establishment and ruling political class . . .
Update: Complaint just mailed.
There WILL be an elections complaint filed about this.
What I find especially interesting is that Connecticut currently has a US Senator who did not win either major party primary and won the general election as an independent. So they can’t even claim that the Republican and Democratic primaries play any role in who gets elected.
@5: They’ll claim it’s “non-partisan,” as that word now means “both Republican and Democrat.”
A partisan voter registration campaign.
I bet she’s spending more than $5000 on it.
And she’s within 60 days of her primary that has Federal candidates on the ballot.
That’s Federal Election activity.
I suspect that the State of Connecticut is not an individual citizen or alien not in the united states for a temporary purpose, either.
If there was ever a reason to leave the Dems/Reps this would be it. Instead of trying to get the 800,000+ Independents into the parties to participate in the primaries why not open the primaries to all voters?
Amen, baby, amen! So instrumental in our national decline!
Aren’t the Public Service announcements paid with taxpayer dollars? If so, the taxpayers who don’t want to join the Democratic-Republican party are paying to be urged to register with the Democratic-Republican party.
The two parties have joined in heart and mind. Just add this to the increasing amount of evidence.