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Ballot PA is a project of the Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that works for better and more accountable government. 

Ballot PA is chaired by C70 senior advisor David Thornburgh, who through the course of his career has launched a series of innovative high impact initiatives to tackle tough community problems. To connect with David, email him at dthornburgh[at]seventy.org.

Justin Villere, the Director of Civic Education at the Committee of Seventy, manages operations for Ballot PA. To connect with Justin, email him at jvillere[at]seventy.org. 

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  • Thomas Vernon
    commented 2023-05-17 11:02:17 -0400
    The Philadelphia primary election is a blatant example of the anti-democratic outcome of closed primaries. Key observations: 1) the virtually automatic confirmation of the Democratic primary outcome in the November election; 2) small turnout; 3) multiple mayoral candidates; 4) and small number of actual votes for the winner. The outcome is a mayor “elected” by a miniscule proportion of our citizens. Meanwhile, a minimum of 128,749 non-Dem, non-Repub voter registrants (2019 data) are excluded from ANY voice in the choice of their mayor. This is a significantly larger number than the margin of 21,762 votes that decided the election, representing and illustrating a substantial deficit of our democracy..

    I suggest that this Philadelphia primary election be used as a case study for the inequity and democracy-damaging of closed primaries.

    Tom Vernon
    [email protected]
  • Harlan Shober
    commented 2023-03-07 09:57:28 -0500
    Question, what do you think about a semi closed primary? I would like to see this versus closed or open alternatives.
  • Justin Villere
    published this page 2022-12-23 09:57:31 -0500

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