Want to get involved?

Community Volunteers to spread the word about Open Primaries in Maryland to friends and neighbors, help gather signatures for the petition, recruit activists, etc.
Legal-Analysis Volunteers to review and analyze Maryland state laws and legislative procedures.
Communications Volunteers to write op-eds or letters to the editor of local newspapers, and provide news content to our Media Specialist Kathy Lomaskin.

Welcome!

Op ed worth reading!

Background Information for our advocacy

In Maryland, the number of registered voters who are not affiliated with any political party (independents) has risen to almost 21% (854,800; and is continuing to rise -- in Apri 2023, 36% of new voters registered as unaffiliated, and according to a study by Open Primaries, unaffiliated voters are projected to become the state's second-largest group of voters in the next 15 years.

Our state constitution says that all registered voters (which includes those who are not affiliated with any political party) "shall be entitled to vote in the ward or election district in which the citizen resides at all elections to be held in this State." This would seem to include primary elections, since they are paid for by the state.

Nevertheless, Maryland's current election system prohibits unaffiliated voters from participating in primary elections for state and federal positions.

Prohibiting voters from participating in primary elections is a problem because Primary elections are the only elections of importance in many districts in Maryland. For example, in more than a third of Maryland's counties, all the district and county candidates who won in the primary for one political party went on to win at the general election, some of them running unopposed.

Taxation without representation: Maryland's primary elections are not paid for by the political parties. They are paid for by the taxes of all Maryland citizens, including those who are not allowed to vote in those elections unless they affiliate with the Democratic or Republican parties.

Many independents choose not to affiliate with any political party because they want to relate more with the candidates rather than with the political party.

Closed primaries deny independent voters their rights guaranteed by the U.S. and Maryland constitutions.