Pennsylvanians support more participation in primary elections
A strong majority – 72%– of voters are concerned with registered Independent’s not being allowed to participate in Pennsylvania’s primaries.
Pennsylvanians support a new semi-open primary law
There is clear majority support from voters of all parties for semi-open primaries in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvanias are concerned that independents can’t vote
A large majority – 69% - of voters strongly support a new semi-open primary law.
Most Pennsylvanians Want Open Primaries
Methodology: On behalf of Unite America, Interviews were conducted March 15 through March 17, 2025, by live telephone operators, including landlines (1%) and cell phones (99%). Interviews include 800 Likely Voters (LVs) across the state of Pennsylvania. Quotas on education, ethnicity, age, gender, party, and region were used to ensure a representative distribution. The study’s margin of error is ±4%.
DID YOU KNOW?
Forty-five percent of US voters now identify as Independent or Unaffiliated to State (DTS) voters, and this affiliation is growing faster than any other party membership in the United States.
As of 2023, more than 1.3 million Pennsylvanians, 15% of all registered voters, are registered to either no party or to a minor party and that number continues to grow.
Our closed-primary system disenfranchises these voters.
Benefits of Semi-Open Primaries in Pennsylvania
In a semi-open primary, non-affiliated voters can choose which party's primary they want to participate in.
Currently, Pennsylvanians registered as independents or with a minor party are not able to vote in our publicly-funded primary elections. Semi-open primaries would remove the unequitable burden of having to change voter registration to be able to vote in a primary. Instead, non-affiliated/independent voters could select a party's ballot at the primary.
Semi-open primaries can encourage more competition within parties, as more voter participation will be enabled. This can lead to a wider range of viewpoints being represented and a more diverse group of candidates.
In a semi-open primary, independent voters may have more influence on the outcome of the primary, as they are able to choose which party's primary to participate in. This can give them a greater voice in the political process.
Some proponents of semi-open primaries argue that they can help to moderate the positions of candidates, as they may need to appeal to a wider range of voters in order to win the primary. States that have opened their primaries have seen a decrease in political polarization after making the change. Elected officials must then work on coalition-building and problem-solving to be seen as effective by the increased voting population and can't just remain in place by pandering to one part of their electorate.
