[AP] State Dems Want Trial Over Primary Voters to Continue
The Associated Press is reporting:
Attorneys for plaintiffs wanting to keep non-Democrats from voting in Democratic Party primaries have asked a federal judge to let a trial go on as scheduled.
There is disagreement within the Democratic Party about the lawsuit, which seeks to restrict primary voting only to people who plan to support the party’s nominee in a general election.
U.S. District Judge Allen Pepper has set the case for trial July 30 in Greenville.
The attorney general’s office, on behalf of the three-member State Board of Election Commissioners, asked Pepper in January to dismiss the lawsuit. On March 12, the Democratic Party asked Pepper to deny the state’s request.
[...] Ellis Turnage of Cleveland, who represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a March 12 document opposing its dismissal that Mississippi law compels the Democratic Party “to permit nonmembers to vote in its primaries, allows party raiding and causes the dilution of Democratic voting strength in primary elections.”
Turnage said the law thwarts the party’s effort to select candidates for the general election ballot who best represent the party’s interests. He said the party - not the state - should decide which voters participate in its primaries.
“A political party’s determination of the boundaries of its own association, and of the structure which best allows it to pursue its political goals, is protected by the Constitution. Neither voters nor political candidates can force a political party to accept them against the will of the party,” Turnage said.
Posted by ladd at 07:48 PM in Democrats, Judiciary, Elections | Email this entry
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