Mr. Mickey Edwards the author of, The Parties Versus the People, writes: “Because activists who demand loyalty and see compromising as selling out dominate party primaries and conventions, candidates who seek their permission to be on the November ballot find themselves under great pressure to take hard-line positions. This tendency toward rigidity—and the party system that enables it—is at the root of today’s political dysfunction.

In Delaware in 2010, a mere 30,000 of that state’s nearly 1 million people kept Mike Castle, a popular congressman and former governor, off the general-election ballot. In Utah, 3,500 people meeting in a closed convention deprived the rest of the state’s 3 million residents of an opportunity to consider reelecting their longtime senator Robert Bennett.”

"Congressional division and dysfunction is the result of an incentive structure run amok"

“Balancing stories from different eras in American politics with his own experience as a member of Congress, Edwards makes a compelling case that the current congressional division and dysfunction is the result of an incentive structure run amok.

Procedural rules and election laws have been rigged to reward hyperpartisanship, thereby trapping otherwise well-intentioned people in a system that rewards intransigence, treating members of the other party as the enemy. [Thedailybeast.com]”

“Incentives drive behavior, and the incentives right now are to watch out for the primaries.”

Mr. Edwards suggests open primaries as a solution for hyper-partisanship.  “In 2010, Californians voted to create an “open primary” system in which every candidate for a particular office, regardless of party, will appear on the same ballot, and every voter who wishes to participate, also regardless of party, will be able to choose among them [Washington State did the same in 2006]. The top two will advance to the general election, even if they belong to the same party.

Just the act of establishing an open primary would break the partisan and ideological chokehold on the general-election ballot and create a much truer system of democratic self-government. As a result, members of Congress would have greater freedom to base their legislative decisions on their constituents’ concerns and on their own independent evaluations of a proposal’s merits. They would be our representatives, not representatives of their political clubs.”

“…In a system that depends on winning votes, the only real incentives that can work are those that reward working together in a bipartisan (or, preferably, nonpartisan) manner. In California’s new open primary system, it is now important for candidates to reach out to a much broader cross-section of the electorate, including members of the other party and independents. That’s a good incentive. NPR”

Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal writes “closed party primaries are the leading culprit behind growing polarization.” He then reviews how the results of the open primaries from the 2012 elections in California could pave the way for less partisanship.

“In some overwhelmingly Republican and Democratic districts, the top two finishers were from the same party, making the minority party’s voters the crucial swing bloc. That created the spectacle of uber-liberal candidates appealing to tea-party conservatives while archconservatives were finding their inner progressives. One of the most liberal members of Congress, former California Rep. Pete Stark, faced a general-election matchup against fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell, the Alameda County deputy district attorney.

Stark was endorsed by President Obama, Democratic elected officials, and organized labor. Attacking the congressman’s temperament, Swalwell appealed to moderates and the handful of Republicans in the district — and knocked off the 20-term member of Congress by a 4 percentage-point margin.

In the conservative, newly drawn 8th Congressional District, the pragmatic Republican whose campaign focused on local issues, Paul Cook, comfortably defeated tea-party-backed challenger Gregg Imus, even though he finished second during the primary. In a matchup pitting two Democratic incumbents against each other, Rep. Brad Sherman claimed tea-party-friendly elements of his voting record while Rep. Howard Berman touted endorsements from more Republican members of Congress.

…As Republicans publicly agonize over how to avoid nominating unelectable Senate candidates and centrist Democrats fret over the party’s move leftward, there are plenty of lessons to learn from tweaking the primary process. Talking about redistricting reform may be the cause célèbre, but the more useful solution lies in tweaking how parties pick their nominees.”

According to polls by Gallup and Pew, more Americans identify themselves as independents than ever before.  Open primaries would entice such a large segment of the population to be more active in the primaries, thus helping to minimize hyper-partisanship and gridlock in Washington, DC.

Thomas Smith of the Washington Post makes a persuasive case for having open primaries in Washington, D.C.: 

“Under the current system, Democratic insiders have a stranglehold on this one-party town. The District’s closed primary process has created a breeding ground for politicians who, in rising through the party ranks, look at public service as a personal entitlement and are careful to reward their fellow activists to ensure future support.

Worse, the closed primary process essentially disenfranchises the nearly 25 percent of D.C. voters who choose not to register as Democrats, since winning a Democratic primary in this city is tantamount to winning the general election. That means 125,000 non-Democrats — including roughly 87,000 unaffiliated voters and 32,000 Republicans — have next to no say in who represents them.

The damage this does to the civic life of the city is clear. Despite the convenience of early voting and 

same-day registration, fewer residents are voting in city elections in recent years.

Even Democratic primary turnout is spiraling downward; just 17 percent of registered Democrats voted in last April’s primary. Turnout in general elections is on an even more perilous path, no surprise given the lack of real competition on the November ballot. It’s hard to be very excited about voting when the result is always known in advance. [Joe Ferraro writes in Philly.com that because of Pennsylvania’s closed primary system, the turnouts are abysmal. Many times, less than 25 percent of the population shows up at the polls.]

With so few people voting, candidates need attract only a small segment of Democratic support to win

With so few people voting, candidates need attract only a small segment of Democratic support to win.

The hard-fought 2010 mayoral contest between then-Council Chairman Vincent Gray and the incumbent, Adrian Fenty, is a case in point. Gray bested Fenty by 13,000 votes in a Democratic primary in which only a third of the city’s Democrats bothered to vote. All told, Gray received 73,000 votes — roughly 14 percent of the total electorate. Would the outcome have been different if the city’s 125,000 non-Democrats could have crossed over and voted in the primary?” 

[Here is an interesting analysis of how some certain elections could have had a different outcome with an open primary.]