KC Counts:
How long have you been doing this work?
Cathy Stewart:
I've been at open primaries for a little over a year, but I have 30 years of background in the independent voter space. I worked at independent voting before that, but I've done a little bit of everything in this space.
KC Counts:
Tell me a little bit about what you have learned over the decades about states that have open primaries versus states that don't.
Cathy Stewart:
Great question. Well, step one, I would say that states with closed primaries have a fundamental disconnect between the structure of our primary system and where the American people are going. Increasingly, Americans are becoming unaffiliated from political parties, right? 45% of Americans, according to Gallup nationwide, 56% of Gen. Z voters, So increasingly that small handful number of states, it's now 17 that have completely closed primaries are just fundamentally at odds with what's developing in the culture and the practice of American politics. And they leave their independent citizens in a situation where they're paying for elections that they can't vote in. And increasingly primaries are the elections that matter. What is it in New Mexico? It's 82% of elections, or 80% of elections get decided in primaries. So you're locking out a growing constituency of Americans?
KC Counts:
And so New Mexico lawmakers decided and changed that. And now we have what's called a semi-open primary. And at the end of early voting, which ended on Saturday, it was still a very small percentage of registered voters that took part in early voting, about I think 5%, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, after election day, that will change as we are having this conversation. It is June 1st and it's the day off for our poll workers before they go in their biggest day of the year. What can you tell us about getting those wheels greased in terms of getting more people just to know that they can take part and getting them to do so?
Cathy Stewart:
Yeah, that's the $64 million question, KC, and I really appreciate your asking about it. So I have several things I think we have to consider. First of all, I do not think that the county clerks and the Secretary of State have done an adequate job. And I'm going to say some things about that in a moment, but let me just point to two examples. As we headed into early voting, we were checking all of the county websites, and most of them did not have a notice prominently displayed or anywhere on the site that let decline to state voters know that they had this brand new voting right. A mailing was sent out, but it was frankly inadequate. It was very small print. Every voter got the same notice. You really kind of needed to pull out your magnifying glass to find the decline to state section of that mailer. And I think what's getting missed is this is a huge cultural transition. You have declined to state voters in the state, 378,000 of them, who have been systematically excluded and ignored for generations. So one mailer is not going to do it. And that's actually why we stepped in to run a very vibrant independent to independent education campaign with ads on Hulu and CTV and YouTube, all in the voices of New Mexico independent voters. basically saying to voters, hey, look, we won. It took 10 years, but we actually won an open primary. Please get out there and vote and use your vote. And we've amplified that with a text campaign and we've been phone banking. And still, this weekend, voters were saying to us, wow, I'm so glad you reached me. I didn't know. Maybe I got a mailer, but I didn't pay attention because I don't think I can vote in primaries. So it's going to take something that's not so technically oriented, but is more of this cultural shift and independent voters being reached out to in lots of ways to let them know that they have this new voting right. I just want to add one other thing about this. When we look at the turnout, I'm like, I'm happy. 5%? We went from zero to 5%. The reason I say that with such vehemence is that in this country, most Americans don't vote in primaries. Most Democrats and Republicans don't because they see it as the purview of the party regulars or the party activists. And that's something we have to change as a nation. So I love that challenge.
KC Counts:
How much resistance to it is there out there still?
Cathy Stewart:
When you say resistance, do you mean resistance from voters or resistance from the political apparatus?
KC Counts:
From the status quo structure as it is and the parties themselves.
Cathy Stewart:
Yeah, that's a good question. I think that there's a lot of resistance. We saw it in the effort to win a semi-open primary bill in New Mexico, right? It took 10 years to actually prevail. And a lot of the arguments are, oh no, it's going to be more expensive. Oh no, I won't know who my prime voters are. Oh no. But of course, these are their constituents. So I think that there's a transition we have to go through. And I think that we're also seeing lots of efforts around the country to close primaries and also Gerrymandering has taken off on steroids this year, as we all know. And if you think about it, gerrymandering is designed to control the fall election. Closing primaries is designed to control the primary. Opening the primary means you have to rethink some things. And I'll say this, the parties and the candidates that make the biggest investment in connecting with, listening to and activating independent voters are going to see a payoff for a generation.
KC Counts:
Who's doing it the best in the country?
Cathy Stewart:
That's a good question. Who's doing it the best?
KC Counts:
Maybe you could say what is the best way to do a more open primary, if not a fully open primary, like we haven't gotten to yet in New Mexico. Where can you point to and what kind of system is working the best and engaging the most people? Maybe that's a better way to word that question.
Cathy Stewart:
I think that you see some interesting highlights. I would point to California and Washington State and Alaska that have, they have nonpartisan systems, right? But here's something that I think is the key, which is independent voters becoming more organized themselves. and building networks and insisting that they have a full seat at the table. And that's something that we're very, very committed to at Open Primaries and Let Us Vote. So we're not stopped. We didn't stop when we won the bill and we're not stopping after this election. There are independents all over the state who want to continue to reach out and build those networks. And I think that's a key to what's going to make a big, big difference.
KC Counts:
So what are next steps for organizations like yours from where we are today?
Cathy Stewart:
We're going to, obviously we're extremely interested in seeing how our efforts this year worked, what worked, what didn't. And then we're going to be doing a statewide call with our networks across the state and asking independent voters what they want to do next. How did they want to impact? And I think there's going to be a lot of people who have stories to tell. You know, I've been talking to voters all over the state. And there are many voters who are saying to me, okay, this was great. I got to vote, but I really didn't want to have to only pick one party ballot because I liked a candidate over here. So there are going to be some people that want to work on that issue of a more nonpartisan approach to primaries. We have independent voters that would like to see a way to participate at the polls where they don't have to say out loud publicly which ballot. Could their secret ballot be a little bit more protected? Because if you're a Democrat or Republican, you just sign in, you get a ballot. Nobody knows. But independents were asked to say out loud in most counties. So there's some people that want to see some tweaks in how they're related to at their polling places. And then there's folks that are going to want to get involved with candidates. and with other reforms. So we'll see what people want to do. The key thing I see nationally is that when independent voters get organized and they start to step into rooms that traditionally have been populated by Democrats and Republicans or political professionals, new things can happen. New kinds of coalitions, new kinds of opportunities can be created because they're the thing that everyone thinks can happen, right? Independents can't get organized.
KC Counts:
So that organizing that you talked about, I'm assuming that you have some tips and some information for folks who might want to explore that path a little bit.
Cathy Stewart:
Absolutely. People can visit Let Us Vote, New Mexico, let us vote.org and sign up and get involved and share what they want to do next. So absolutely, people can get involved with us and will help connect them to independence in their area and across the state.
KC Counts:
How many different varieties of closed or open primaries across the country are there currently?
Cathy Stewart:
There's a fair amount. So what New Mexico adopted last year was also adopted in Maine. So there's two states in the country that have adopted A semi-open system. That is the system in place in Massachusetts and several other states. In a lot of the southern states, they have nonpartisan voter registration. Only 30 states, when you go to vote, go to register, make you declare a party. The rest of the states have nonpartisan voter registration. So you're just a voter, and that's how it is in a lot of southern states. Alabama, Tennessee. So when you go in on a primary day, you just ask for the ballot. Everybody does that. Now, there's a big move in many of the southern states to close those primaries, which would be a huge culture shift and disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of millions of voters.
KC Counts:
I think some people might be surprised to hear that it's the South that kind of is more progressive in the 1st place on that. Can you explain why that would be in the 1st place?
Cathy Stewart:
That's a good question. I don't know if I have a good answer for that. Yeah, it's almost all, not every Southern state. Kentucky is a closed party primary state with voter registration. Florida closed. But there is this tradition across many of the Southern states that they are nonpartisan voter registration states. Yeah. And then, of course, you have nonpartisan forms of elections. So that's the form you see in California, in Washington state, in Alaska, some slight variation among them, but that's where everybody's on one ballot. All voters get the same ballot and either the top two or the top three or four go on to the general election. And that's also how we do most of our city elections across major cities in the country.
KC Counts:
One of the concerns that we hear more and more discussion about is that primaries are putting out more and more extreme candidates. What can you say about that and why that has happened?
Cathy Stewart:
I think that what you see happening is that in a closed primary situation, turnout tends to be very low. It tends to be your most strongly party identified, motivated voters. In an open primary system, it's a full reflection of the electorate, right? And if you, even if it's just a semi-open system, it still better reflects the electorate at large. So the way I think about it is I think about it as what's the thread of accountability between voters and their elected officials? In an open system, that thread is more wholesome than simply in a closed system. I also would say if you look at what happened in Kentucky and in Louisiana, in closed systems, this thing that we're now seeing a lot of vengeance politics where a national player, our president says, oh, this person is not loyal to me. That kind of politicking plays very well in a closed primary system, less well in an open primary system.
KC Counts:
I know you can't cast this wide net, but Texas comes to mind because it's an more open primary state. You do have to pick your party when you go in. But Ken Paxson, of course, a perfect example of what you just described.
Cathy Stewart:
Here's an interesting thing about Texas. So we went through the whole Texas gerrymandering situation, which obviously set up a whole national move to gerrymander districts, kind of a race to the bottom. But what's also going on in Texas is the Republican Party has filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas to try to win the right to close the primary. And their own attorney general is not defending the state. So the Secretary of State, who's also a Republican, is defending the state. So we have a close eye on that case.
KC Counts:
Fascinating. Well, Kathy, what else have I not asked you about yet that you'd like for voters to know?
Cathy Stewart:
Well, you know, here's an interesting thing, KC, that I read in, I've read a couple of articles about this now commenting on how independent voters have been predominantly picking Democratic ballots and trying to draw a storyline that says, oh, see, independent voters really are closet Democrats. And I think that misses the whole point. Independent voters are looking at the situation and in most, in so many of the races in New Mexico, the winner of the Democratic Party primary is gonna win the election. So independents are pragmatic, and so they're looking to help shape who their representative is. So it makes sense to me that it's less of an ideological issue and more of a practical issue of, okay, I can finally have a say here. Let me pick the ballot where I can have the most impact. One of our voters was being interviewed by New Mexico Source, and they asked her, they assumed that she was picking a Democratic ballot, and she said, you know, I haven't decided which ballot I'm going to pick yet. I'm looking at all the candidates, and I'm going to pick the race I most want to impact on, and that's the ballot I'll pick. So I just think that one of the challenges here is that we should be curious about how independent voters are voting, why they pick the ballots they pick, and kind of approach this. is a new day in New Mexico. It's a very historic election. So that's what I would add.
KC Counts:
And still obviously a long way to go to open up that democratic process to more people, more public education to do. So hope to stay in touch. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us, Kathy. We appreciate it.
Cathy Stewart:
Yeah, thank you, KC, and thanks for covering this story.
You can learn more about the effort to open primary elections right here.
