Opinion ID: 1130044
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The State's Interests Justify the Restrictions Imposed on RPA's Rights.

Text: RPA claims the right to designate those voters who may vote for Republican candidates in a primary election. The party rule requiring a partially-closed primary election reflects an effort to implement this right. RPA claims that a partially-closed primary advances  and that a blanket primary harms  its interests in two ways. First, it claims that the partially-closed primary is a means by which RPA is able to protect itself against raiding. Second, RPA contends that the partially-closed primary results in the election of candidates who are more accountable to party principles and platform and permit the party to increase the amount of control [it] would have over elected officials.... [14] The State and AVOP counter that the harms which RPA identifies are not substantially greater under a blanket primary than they would be under the RPA's partially-closed primary. They point out that under the latter RPA members constitute less than a third of the total eligible voters and thus considerable potential for raiding exists. Further, they note that a voter may change party registration immediately before voting in the partially-closed primary, which also facilitates raiding. [15] The State and AVOP also argue that the loss of candidate accountability to party principles and party direction is not substantially greater under the blanket primary than under the partially-closed primary, given that fewer than a third of the potential voters in the partially-closed primary are RPA members. [16] In our view there is merit to the State's and AVOP's position that the danger of raiding exists under the partially-closed primary and that the danger is potentially increased only by a matter of degree by a blanket primary. Still, it seems plausible that registered voters in other parties might be more apt than independent or nonpartisan voters to vote against an opposing party candidate in a primary for tactical reasons. Further, the partially-closed primary deters raiding in one way that the blanket primary does not. A partisan voter who switches party allegiances just before the election in order to cast a raiding vote must give up the right to vote for candidates of his or her choice in races in which he has no desire to raid. The Supreme Court, writing in Tashjian in 1986, quoted from a study which concluded that the existence of `raiding' has never been conclusively proven by survey research. 479 U.S. at 219 n. 9, 107 S.Ct. at 551 n. 9. We have been referred to no studies contradicting this conclusion. However, we believe that at least on a small scale and in some races some opposition party voters will vote for a candidate whom they have no intention of supporting in the general election. [17] Thus we believe that raiding is a legitimate concern, even though its effects may be exaggerated. Further, while raiding is readily possible under either the partially-closed primary or the blanket primary, more raiding is apt to occur in the latter system. With respect to the second harm, loss of elected officials' accountability to party principles and party control, the State and AVOP's arguments that this loss is only slightly greater with the expanded franchise of the blanket primary seem correct. Among the reasons offered by the State in support of the blanket primary are that it encourages voter turnout, maximizes voters' freedom of choice among candidates, and tends to ensure that the officers elected are representative of the people to be governed in that it forces the major political parties to have a broad cross-section of support from the voters. [18] These three benefits are seen by the State to have special importance in view of the fact that most voters in Alaska are nonpartisan or undeclared. The benefits inherent in a blanket primary of greater voter participation and voter free choice among all candidates were recognized by the Washington Supreme Court as compelling in Heavey, 611 P.2d at 1259. Voter free choice is better accomplished in a blanket primary than in an open primary: [T]he state interest in allowing voters to support the candidates of their choice in a primary can be achieved only by the blanket primary which allows complete voter freedom in alternating votes between parties, since an open primary, on the other hand, restricts a voter to candidates of only one party. Id. The goal of greater voter participation is one shared by blanket and open primaries. See LaFollette, 450 U.S. at 120-24, 101 S.Ct. at 1018-20. The objective of ensuring that officers elected are representative of a broad cross-section of the electorate, rather than accountable to the narrower interests which may control a party organization, is in essence the reason for the shift, begun at the turn of the century and now generally prevalent, from nomination by party convention to nomination by direct primary. See Lightfoot, 964 F.2d at 872; Note, Setting Voter Qualifications For State Primary Elections, 55 U.Cin.L.Rev. 799-800 (1986-87). In Alaska, where a majority of voters are not affiliated with any party, a closed or partially-closed primary system can plausibly be viewed as bestowing on a minority of the electorate a disproportionately powerful role in the selection of public officeholders. If political parties and politically affiliated voters are to have more power in the election process, that is power taken from unaffiliated voters. Taken individually and collectively these justifications seem to us to be legitimate and important. Collectively they outweigh the harms to RPA's associational interests claimed in this case. It is interesting that the harm claimed by RPA of loss of responsiveness of elected officials to party principles and party discipline is much the same as the benefit claimed by the State of nominating candidates whose appeal is to a broad cross-section of the electorate. This illustrates that this case reflects in part conflicting visions of democracy. On one side are what one commentator calls party renewal advocates whose view is that government works best when elected officials are accountable to party principles and party discipline. [19] On the other are those who agree with the turn-of-the-century Progressives who had a vision of a democracy purged of corruption by placing widely dispersed power in the hands of common men and women. [20] Obviously, both visions have strengths and weaknesses, and it is not the function of any court to resolve them. The important point for our purpose is that the Alaska Legislature has taken a position. In so doing it has exercised a power which only it can exercise, and its choice is both reasonable and nondiscriminatory.