NH and NY independents talk Open Primaries with Andrew Yang
Tiani X. Coleman of New Hampshire Independent Voters got a question on the floor of a recent Town Hall meeting with presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
- Larry Lessing (moderator) – “In NH, as you know, you can register as undeclared and then on the day of the primary you can pick which party you want to vote in. In the last election maybe 25 million people were shut out of primaries because there wasn’t something similar to that or at least an open primary process. Do you think it’s a good idea for parties to open their primaries or do you think it makes sense for parties to figure out what their party cares about?”
- Andrew Yang – “I vastly prefer open primaries. I think having a diversity of perspectives is important. And if you’re trying to win a general election you have to appeal to people that might not already be registered members of your party. I think it was a huge mistake that the DNC is not having a debate on Fox. That made no sense to me. It’s like…You do expect us to eventually try and win an election right? And you know that a lot of people get their news from Fox. And that if they could see your amazing candidates a little bit earlier, maybe that would help us win a general election. So consistent with that I am for an open primary and thank you New Hampshire for having an open primary.”
And at Rev. Sharpton’s National Action Network conference in New York City, Cathy Stewart, IndependentVoting’s Vice President of National Development, spoke with Yang and asked to meet with him to talk about opening the primaries to independents in the 2020 presidential. Yang agreed.