Zohran Mamdani Faces a Telling Decision on Election Reform

One might think that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has less than zero in common with Republicans in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas, Idaho, and Florida. Yet they share a common approach to elections: excluding independent voters from party primaries. One could even call it disenfranchising independents. That became clear last week when the Mamdani-appointed Committee on Government Efficiency excluded a city charter reform ballot vote on the one idea that attracted the most support during its hearings in all five boroughs: open party primaries.The COGE committee voted not to give voters a chance to change a system that excludes the more than 1 million “non-affiliated” registered voters from the preliminarily city elections that are typically low turnout affairs that effectively decide the final outcome. Mr. Mamdani received 469,000 first round votes (before ranked choice vote transfers) in an electorate with 3.2 registered voters. Even that was a relatively high vote total. Mayor Bill de Blasio won the 2012 Democratic primary with just 270,000 votes. The closed primary matters for other elections, too. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in her crucial first primary election victory, which rocketed her to national prominence, received just 16,898 votes in defeating long-term incumbent Joseph Crowley in what amounted to a surprise attack.There’s good reason to believe the idea of an open primary has popular support. More witnesses testified in favor of the idea than any other at the COGE hearings: 14 more than those favoring procurement reform and 17 more than fast-tracking the steps to pay vendors more quickly. Both of those less than earth-shattering changes will, per unanimous committee decision, go to voters this fall.Excluding independents from party primaries is what one would expect from a committee whose appointees include two representatives of public employee unions — the president of the Consortium of Worker Education, Marco A. Carrión, and the executive director of District Council 37, Henry A. Garrido — and Democratic party faithful such as the former Manhattan borough president, Ruth Messenger. An election that introduced other voices — such as the open Los Angeles primary that almost led to Spencer Pratt being on the ballot to oppose Mayor Karen Bass in November — would threaten to upend the cozy relationship between New York labor and the elected officials who allegedly “negotiate” with it over pay and benefits. Philip Howard’s book, “Unaccountable,” is illuminating on this point. Indeed, Mr. Mamdani’s “efficiency” committee itself was arguably established specifically to keep an open primary vote off the ballot. Mayor Eric Adams had established his own charter reform group which was on track to green light an open primary vote. Mr. Adams’s group had met between January and May of this year — until the state legislature gave Mr. Mamdani the authority to replace it with his own commission — that became COGE. It was championed by a Mamdani loyalist, Assemblywoman Liz Krueger. Leaving the open primary idea on the cutting room floor does not mean voters will not get a chance to approve it, however.The group UNITE NY has gathered more than 50,000 voter signatures in order, per city election law, to force a ballot vote. That’s enough to do so if the City Council agrees. If not, the measure can still get on the ballot if the group gathers signatures of 5 percent of registered voters, or some 150,000. A vote would give city voters than chance to join those at Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, all of which are liberal cities with open primaries. Should the proposal get on the ballot, it will lead to a telling choice for Mr. Mamdani. A limited, Democratic electorate would help him in a re-election bid. Overtly disenfranchised independents will expose him as more self-serving than public-spirited. It’s likely a choice he’ll have to face.

Zohran Mamdani Faces a Telling Decision on Election Reform

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