The Committee of Seventy is leading Ballot PA (formerly Open Primaries PA), a growing coalition of civic, community and business organizations committed to open and free elections in Pennsylvania that lead to responsive and accountable government.

3 days ago - Both are plurality systems. Maine use ranked-choice voting for some primaries, which is a majority system. Pennsylvania law stipulates that parties conduct closed primaries, meaning only registered party members can participate in a political party's primary election.

March 31, 2026 - Pennsylvania is one of only nine states with fully closed primaries, where only registered Republicans and Democrats participate, sending candidates to the general election by a small sector of the electorate.

December 5, 2025 - Defenders of closed primaries respond that public funding of election administration doesn’t require parties to abandon their right to control their own nomination processes. As of 2024, states using closed primary systems include Delaware, ...

A vast majority of polls conducted across the state suggest Pennsylvania voters support open primaries. The latest poll on this issue came from an Franklin & Marshall's Center for Public Opinion and Research.

April 24, 2025 - Pennsylvania is one of just 10 states with a closed primary system. That means only registered Democrats and Republicans participate in their respective parties’ spring elections.

June 27, 2025 - Pennsylvania routinely proves critical ... competitiveness is one of only 10 states still utilizing a highly restrictive closed primary election system....

March 11, 2026 - Pennsylvania is one of just eight states with a closed primary system, meaning only voters registered as Democrats or Republicans can participate in their respective parties’ spring elections.

March 17, 2025 - Pennsylvania is one of 10 states that hold so-called closed primaries, in which only registered party members can vote. State legislators have been introducing bills to open up the primary process to unaffiliated voters since at least 1994.

January 11, 2024 - Ballot PA has launched a legislative campaign (in both the Senate and the House) to allow independent voters in the state the right to vote in Republican and Democratic primary elections.

July 7, 2025 - But the term is often used as a catchall to describe a range of processes, including fully closed or partially open primaries. Pennsylvania has the most restrictive primary voting system possible, known as a fully closed primary.

October 17, 2023 - Proposals to let independent voters cast ballots in party nomination primaries passed a Pennsylvania House of Representatives committee, raising the prospect that changes could pass and take effect in time for next year’s presidential contest.

July 18, 2025 - Pennsylvania is one of just 10 states with closed primaries, which means that only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote in those parties’ primary elections. Opening the state’s primaries to independent and third-party voters has ...

May 15, 2025 - Pennsylvania has a chance to follow the lead of states like Maine (which passed open primaries in 2021) and New Mexico (which did the same just last month). And it’s about time: independent voters are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Over the past decade, Pennsylvanians registered as independent or “other” have grown by more than 308,000 people, according to state voter registration archives.

The candidates who get the highest ... party’s officers during a primary election. In Pennsylvania, you can only vote for the candidates in the same political party you have named in your voter registration....

May 19, 2026 - The structure of party primary elections differs across states, with systems that include closed, open, partially open and top‑two primaries.

October 17, 2023 - Jared Solomon and Chris Rabb, both D-Phila., was today voted out of the House State Government Committee. Pennsylvania has a closed primary system, meaning that only voters registered with a given party can vote in...

March 18, 2025 - That disenfranchises as much as ... decided in the primaries. Pennsylvania is one of 10 states that hold so-called closed primaries, in which only registered party members can vote....

February 24, 2025 - The case for open primaries has ... political parties can now vote in the spring election. Pennsylvania remains only one of 10 states with a closed primary system....