“Welcome to the Jungle” was a hit song for the band Guns N’ Roses. Its lyrics symbolize how 1980s Los Angeles seemed to a young Midwestern musician just trying to carve out a career amid the excess the city had to offer; it felt like something akin to total anarchy. In a similar fashion, a growing number of political operatives and elected officials across the country are calling for anarchy of another sort: jungle primary elections.
California and Washington both currently utilize a jungle primary system in which voters can vote for any candidate regardless of political party. In fact, every voter receives the same ballot, and there is no such thing as a Republican ballot or a Democrat ballot, as there is in Iowa. The top two vote-getters in partisan races then advance to the General Election.
This, of course, means there is a possibility that the two leading candidates could be from the same political party. Proponents of this system claim that it is a more democratic process, but voters and candidates themselves say it can be a baffling mess. Regardless of anyone’s partisan leanings, voters instinctively understand that injecting more confusion into the electoral process is a problem.
The Iowa Legislature has, in recent years, passed a series of measures to strengthen election integrity, with the dual goals of counting every lawful vote and keeping fraud far away from the voting booth. These measures include banning ranked choice voting (a system in which voters rank their preferences among the candidates on the ballot), tightening the window for early and absentee voting, and requiring voter identification at polling places. Now, however, Iowa’s election system is being unfairly criticized as a threat to democracy.
In a closed primary system, as Iowa has, registered voters must be declared members of a specific political party to participate in that party’s decision-making. Crossover voting is prohibited; that is, a Democrat cannot vote in a Republican primary election and vice versa. Iowans can, however, change their party registration at the polling place.
This system protects voters and their right to associate with the political parties they support. Otherwise, crossover voters can interfere with and take choices away from the voters of a specific party. Republican voters should not have the power to nominate Democrat Party candidates, and Democrats should not have the ability to choose the nominees of the Republican Party. Iowa’s current system prevents that and protects the rights of voters and political parties to choose the candidates they believe best represent them.
Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, who is also the Democrat Party nominee for governor, has publicly declared that the two-party system is corrupt. Sand believes that independent voters are shut out of the primary process and do not have a voice. However, this is inaccurate. Much like partisan voters are allowed to change their registration on Election Day, “no party” voters are allowed to register as Democrats or Republicans at the polls so they can participate in a primary election.
Rob Sand isn’t just as a critic of Iowa’s current system, he’s actually advocating for a radical overhaul of Iowa’s elections. The process he prefers would look much like a combination of a jungle primary system and ranked choice voting. There is no reason Iowa should abandon a straightforward system that everyone understands in exchange for a new, convoluted one filled with complications.
When critics claim that independents are left out of the primary process, they are demonstrating an ignorance of the actual process. Not only does Iowa law permit voters to switch or declare their party affiliation on the day of a primary election, as noted above, but they can also do so for presidential caucuses, which are actually party-run affairs. Iowa’s caucuses may be closed, but voters can easily change their party affiliation and participate in a caucus. Afterwards, voters can even switch back if they choose.
The courts have backed up the legality of a closed primary system. In Polelle v. Florida, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that Florida’s closed primary system is not a violation of an independent voter’s constitutional rights nor does it create an overburdensome process for voting. Further, the Court ruled that Florida’s closed primary helps to “enhance its interest in effective government by supporting parties’ electioneering efforts…Florida can constitutionally conclude that its closed primary regime may promote both effective governance and electoral accountability,” noted the Court’s majority opinion.
In other words, the judicial branch has affirmed that political parties serve a valuable role in the election process. They help educate voters while also representing broad coalitions of individuals who share similar views and philosophies.
Iowa’s primary process is not burdensome and does not create roadblocks to participation. Jungle primaries and ranked choice voting are so confusing that even election officials have a difficult time understanding and administering such elections. The process creates unnecessary complexity, disenfranchises voters through “ballot exhaustion,” and leads to lengthy ballot counts and recounts.
Axl Rose, the lead singer of Guns N’ Roses and writer of “Welcome to the Jungle,” was a kid from Lafayette, Indiana, who found himself overwhelmed by the jungle of Los Angeles. Iowa doesn’t need to recreate that experience at the ballot box. Elections should be understandable, not an exercise in manipulating the system in an attempt to alter outcomes.
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