> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Will New York City Ever Get Open Primaries? - URL: https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/why-nyc-needs-open-primaries-elections/ - Published: 2026-08-26T13:00:10.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-26T13:00:09.000Z - Description: A diagnosis of why a democratic reform that has succeeded in so many other places has failed to gain traction in New York - Author: Jeremy Gruber - Tags: Elections When the Charter Revision Commission decided not to place open primaries before New York City voters this year, it was a disappointment for the city's 1.2 million independent voters. Many of these voters [had testified before the Commission](https://vitalcity-nyc.github.io/nyc-coge-testimony/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org), hoping that New York would finally join the [overwhelming majority](https://www.nlc.org/resource/cities-101-partisan-and-non-partisan-elections/?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) of American cities that allow independent voters to participate in public primary elections. The idea of open primaries is simple. Today, only registered Democrats and Republicans choose who makes it to the November general election ballot by participating in separate, closed primaries, which are typically low-turnout affairs. In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, that means that the primary, in which more than a million independent voters cannot participate, often winds up choosing the mayor. By contrast, open primaries are open to all voters, leading to general elections in which the candidates on the final ballot have been broadly chosen by all eligible voters. Open primaries have been considered before in New York City, so some might think this is just another swing and a miss. I don't see it that way. I think this go-round has clarified something that those of us working on this issue have been slow to recognize. For more than 20 years, reformers in New York have approached open primaries as a strategic challenge. They have tried to find the right campaign, the right coalition, the right ballot initiative, the right legal theory, the right poll, the right messaging. Each effort has been more sophisticated than the last. Yet despite broad public support, the result has been a consistent failure. The reason is *not* that New Yorkers oppose open primaries. [Poll](https://www.einpresswire.com/article/920243284/new-poll-majority-of-nyc-democrats-favor-open-primaries-40-of-democrats-are-actually-independents?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) after [poll](https://manhattan.institute/article/assessing-the-race-polling-2025-nyc-mayoral-election?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) shows that they support giving independent voters access to publicly funded primary elections. The problem is that reformers like me have been trying to solve the wrong problem. What is needed is not a better strategy but a stronger movement. Strategy matters, but movements are built by people who come to recognize themselves as part of a common cause. Until that happens, even the best strategy has nowhere to take root. Ironically, this latest Charter Commission defeat may have done more to build that movement than many other things those of us who believe in open primaries have tried in recent years. Throughout the hearings, independent voters appeared before the Commission in remarkable numbers. They came from every borough and every walk of life. Teachers, immigrants, union members, veterans, entrepreneurs, students, retirees and lifelong New Yorkers all stood before the Commission to tell remarkably similar stories. They were asking why they are excluded from public elections that they help pay for and that often determine who governs their city. That question deserves an answer. New York City administers and funds its primary elections with taxpayer dollars. Political parties have every right to organize themselves, recruit candidates, develop platforms and advocate for their beliefs. The question is whether government should pay for all of this. Why should participation in a public election be contingent on membership in a private political organization? The freedom to make one's own political choices, including the choice not to join a political party, is a fundamental part of our democracy. Imagine telling Democrats they must register as Republicans before they could vote. Imagine telling Republicans they had to become Democrats. The objection would be immediate because we instinctively understand that government should not compel political association. Yet that is precisely what New York asks of more than one million independent voters every election cycle. By rejecting open primaries out of hand despite support for the ideas being repeatedly and passionately expressed, the Charter Commission ultimately revealed something much larger than institutional resistance to one reform. It revealed how dramatically New York's political institutions have fallen behind the electorate they are supposed to serve. Independent voters are not a small or marginal constituency — they are increasingly the center of American political life. [Majorities of Gen Z and millennial voters identify as independent.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) [Fifty-four percent](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/charter/downloads/pdf/2025/7-21-2025-charter-revision-commission-adopted-final-report-digital.pdf?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) of New York City's independent voters are people of color. Nationally, [independents now make up the largest segment of the electorate](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/16/politics/cnn-poll-political-parties-independent-democrats-republicans?ref=vitalcitynyc.org). The future of American politics is becoming increasingly independent. The future should be allowed to vote. That is why Mayor Zohran Mamdani's recent statement that he is “content” with New York's closed primary system was so disappointing. I don't question his commitment to expanding democracy; he [never would have been elected without bringing many more people into the political process](https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-voters-power-mamdani-victory-shape-key-2025-elections?ref=vitalcitynyc.org). But I would invite him to do something that no report or briefing book can accomplish: spend an evening with independent voters. Listen to their thoughts on why they have chosen political independence and what it feels like to be told that they must join a political party whose agenda they do not support in order to participate in the public elections that they help fund. The problem with telling Mamdani to do this is obvious: Independent voters are, well, independent. By definition, they are not members of an organization that holds regular meetings. But the recent Charter Commission hearings suggest that this may be changing. The independent voters who participated did not sound like a disconnected collection of individuals — they sounded like a community that had begun to recognize itself. Hundreds of people who had never met one another described remarkably similar experiences of exclusion. They spoke different languages, came from different neighborhoods and held different political beliefs. What united them was the experience of being told that their political independence disqualified them from participating in elections that belonged to every taxpayer. That is how movements begin. For years, those of us working on open primaries have tried to persuade commissions, legislatures, judges, editorial boards and elected officials. That work remains essential. Litigation is opening important constitutional questions. Legislative opportunities will continue to emerge. Research continues to strengthen the case. None of that should stop. But real democratic reform has never been achieved simply because the arguments in its favor became overwhelming. It has happened because the people affected became organized. The women’s suffrage movement did not prevail because it finally discovered the perfect strategy memo. The civil rights movement did not dismantle barriers to voting because it produced better polling. Those movements changed America because excluded citizens built organizations, told their stories relentlessly and created enough civic power that the political system eventually had no choice but to respond. I believe the movement for open primaries is reaching that moment. Washington, D.C., offers an important lesson. Voters overwhelmingly approved open primaries in 2024, but implementation stalled when the local political establishment resisted. Reform moved forward only because citizens continued organizing long after the election was over. They built enough civic power that ignoring them became politically impossible. They did not simply win a vote. They built a movement and, as a result, Washington fully adopted open primaries this June. With the [possibility of an open-primary question returning to the ballot](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook/2026/08/18/open-primary-proponents-eye-2027-as-their-year-in-nyc-01039777?ref=vitalcitynyc.org) in 2027 now being discussed, it is tempting to work backward from a date on the calendar. But movements don't work that way. Any campaign for open primaries will be successful only if it first gives the people who are excluded the opportunity to find one another, organize and build the civic power needed to win. That work takes time, and any specific campaign for change must be the culmination of the work, not the starting point. The Charter Commission did not put open primaries on the ballot this year. But it did something almost as important. It gave independent New Yorkers an opportunity to see one another, hear one another and begin imagining themselves as something more than a voter registration category. Movements begin that way, and when they do, history has a habit of catching up.