HARRISBURG — Supporters of opening Pennsylvania's primaries to more than 1 million unaffiliated voters hope the courts will accomplish what the legislature couldn't for decades.
Pennsylvania is one of just eight states with a closed primary system, meaning only voters registered as Democrats or Republicans can participate in their respective parties’ spring elections. People who don’t belong to a major party can still vote on statewide referenda, local initiatives, and special elections that are on the ballot at the same time.
The commonwealth is a member of a shrinking group. In the past year, two states, Nebraska and New Mexico, changed their primary systems to allow all registered voters to participate.
This year’s primary is on May 19, and will see Pennsylvanians choose candidates for critical congressional and General Assembly midterms. (The governor is also on the ballot this year, though both parties have just one candidate.)
For decades, lawmakers have introduced bills that would allow unaffiliated — and sometimes, third-party — voters to participate in primaries. A dedicated number of good-government advocates support the change.
Supporters of open primaries note these voters pay taxes that fund elections, arguing the current system effectively disenfranchises them for opting out of partisan politics.
However, despite bipartisan and popular support for the measure, the state legislature has never sent an open primary bill to the governor’s desk.
Most recently, lawmakers in the state House voted for a bipartisan bill that would have opened primaries to unaffiliated voters in October 2024, but the bill never received final consideration. The state Senate passed a similar measure in 2019, with 42 lawmakers voting in favor, but that bill failed to pass the House.
Now advocates have turned to the state court system to enact change.
Ballot PA Action — an organization dedicated to opening the state’s primary elections and including longtime good-government advocate David Thornburgh and radio and TV host Michael Smerconish — filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court last December with a group of independent voters. They argued the state’s current system violates the Pennsylvania Constitution by diminishing the power of independent voters.
“The crux of our case is that partisan voters have more power than nonpartisan voters,” Thornburgh told Spotlight PA.
Specifically, the suit argues that by excluding independent voters from primaries — where many races are effectively decided — the state’s closed primary system gives Democratic and Republican voters greater influence over election outcomes and thereby violates the free and equal elections clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which requires all votes carry equal weight.
The suit does not make any distinction between unaffiliated and third-party voters. Its estimate of the number of disenfranchised voters in Pennsylvania — 1.4 million — includes both groups.
Initially, Thornburgh and the other plaintiffs hoped to have the state Supreme Court use its powers to take up the case directly. However, the high court declined to do so, and the case now awaits a response from Commonwealth Court, which is not beholden to a specific time frame.
“It’s not instead of [legislative action],” Thornburgh said of the suit. “But the great advantage of the court approach is if the court says, ‘Yes, this is unconstitutional,’ then the legislature has to act.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers have again introduced bills that would open primaries.
Passing any kind of election reform bill through the divided state House and Senate has proven difficult in recent years, and legislative leaders have been noncommittal about whether they will bring any of those measures for a vote.
In the state House, Rep. Jared Solomon (D., Philadelphia) introduced a bill that would allow unaffiliated voters to cast a ballot in primary elections by choosing the Democratic or Republican ballot when they go to vote. Solomon called including such voters a “moral imperative,” but also said he viewed it as a way for unaffiliated voters to “have a stake in our democracy and civil fabric.”
His bill doesn’t include third-party voters. Solomon says that’s because those voters have already identified with a party and could, at least in theory, create their own primary process.
The measure passed through the House State Government committee on party lines last May and awaits a vote on the chamber floor. House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) has not commented on whether he would call it up. A spokesperson for House Democrats said the caucus is “still reviewing the bill.”
Solomon said he knows his leadership is supportive, pointing to last session’s vote to amend an election bill to include this measure and a proposal to permit in-person early voting. He’s hopeful the state House will take up the measure again and “move the ball” to the Senate.
In the upper chamber, Sens. Lisa Boscola (D., Northampton) and Dan Laughlin (R., Erie) have introduced a similar bill to allow independents to vote in primaries. Boscola told Spotlight PA in a statement that she remains “optimistic” that lawmakers can pass this legislation.
“There is a growing energy to make this change because our democracy needs it,” Boscola said. “A recent lawsuit may force the General Assembly to act, which is fine with me.”
One of the legislature’s longest-serving members, Boscola has supported opening primaries for decades. She co-sponsored a bill to do so in 1996, during her first session in the state House.
Boscola and Laughlin’s bill has not yet been voted on. It currently sits in the Senate State Government Committee. The committee chair, Sen. Cris Dush (R., Jefferson), did not return a request for comment, but told Spotlight PA in 2023 that he would not call up a previous iteration of the bill because open primaries would be “like having the Baltimore Ravens be involved with the draft of the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
Senate Republican leadership has also been noncommittal about the measure.
A spokesperson for the caucus told Spotlight PA, “While discussions are ongoing regarding open primaries, measures which uphold voter confidence and prioritize the integrity of our electoral process remain our key focus.”