OPINION: NM should adopt open primaries so all voters have a choice in public elections

It’s time to talk about how President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential campaign is related to our broken political system.

This failing system got us to the point where we had the two major party presidential candidates rejected by 70% of the electorate, according to most polls.

You can be a Biden supporter and believe he should have stuck with what many thought was his promise to be a one-term president. The problem was that he should never have considered running for a second term, but there was and is a whole political industry of elitist insiders surrounding him — from political appointees to lobbyists/consultants to major funders — who had too much power to lose if he stepped down.

Let’s review what happened during the primary season controlled by the so-called elites, the political parties, and Biden’s campaign team, as well as Trump’s: nothing. And let’s be clear, the Republican Party is just as broken as the Democrat Party.

There were no meaningful primaries and no debates with “presumed” nominees. Many primaries were canceled by the parties. And there were other credible presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle who wanted to debate.

Neither Biden nor Trump agreed to debate them so we had no idea how fit either one was to carry on a rational, thoughtful policy conversation. And most Americans came away from the June 27 presidential debate with the impression that neither major party candidate was well-qualified to lead our country for the next four years.

What if the political parties did not control primary elections in the USA? What if both President Biden and former President Trump actually had to run a primary campaign, debate their opponents, and face the voters early?

Primaries are public elections and should not be able to be canceled by a private club, such as our political parties. The parties are not official parts of the government, yet some states canceled their primaries because the parties said to.

This party-controlled primary issue is especially problematic as Gallup has recently shown for the first time that a majority of voters, 51%, do not identify with either party and are independents.

When you hear a talking head or a politician say America is divided in half between Republicans and Democrats, a more accurate picture is that half are independent, a quarter are Republicans and a quarter are Democrats.

Yet, there are next to zero independent elected officials nationally.

Why do we have more choices of cereal and ice cream than presidential candidates? Why do private clubs, the political parties, control who can vote in first-round public elections or even if they are held or not? That is not democracy.

This is no way to run a country and the little people are watching, not just the elites.

It is time to fundamentally change the way we elect, district and finance candidates from county commission to the president. This is yet another reminder that it is time for New Mexico to adopt open primaries, so that all voters have their voices heard.

Bob Perls, of Corrales, is founder and president of New Mexico Open Elections. He also served in the New Mexico House of Representatives from 1993-1996, representing District 44 in Sandoval County.