Tennessee GOP Executive Committee Rejects Effort To Change Primary System

Update

The executive committee for Tennessee’s Republican party voted 37-29 Saturday against a recommendation to switch the state’s primary elections to a closed system.

Original Post (Feb. 6)

Tennessee’s open primary system might soon become a thing of the past. Republicans meet Saturday to discuss whether voters should be required to register their party affiliation. Such a shift would end decades of practice in the state.

Their gripe is with so-called “crossover voters,” in this case Democrats, who switch parties in the primaries. Some activists in the Republican Party believe they’ve been diluting their votes, so the state GOP has called a special meeting to deal with their complaint. Top officials are remaining neutral.

“It’s hard to find fault with the current process since it has provided the avenue for the Tennessee Republican Party to attain our mega-majority status,” TNGOP executive director Brent Leatherwood said Thursday.

Still, the issue riles rank-and-file Republicans. They point to a Senate race last year in Mississippi as evidence crossover voters can tilt the balance in a close race.

But John Geer, a professor at Vanderbilt University, says there’s “overwhelming support for an open primary” in Tennessee.” A recent Vanderbilt poll finds 82 percent want to stick with open primaries.

“We do not see 82 percent very often,” Geer said.

Things got heated the last time GOP leaders talked about closing primaries. The most the GOP could do this weekend is pass a resolution calling for closed primaries. Legislators would then need to change state law to implement the system.