If you want more Hoosiers to vote, give us good reasons.
Indiana leaders should be exploring every idea for improving voter turnout. We need to repair our reputation as the state with the lowest turnout in 2014.
Sunday, we suggested one easy, no-cost solution. We should change our 6 p.m. time for closing the polls. Only three states close that early, and a later closing time would make voting more convenient.
Here’s another no-cost idea that could boost voting: move our primary elections to March.
Right now, Hoosiers vote in primary elections at the beginning of May
With a March primary, Hoosiers would have a much better chance to play a key role in choosing presidential nominees.
Current schedules show 30-plus states will hold caucuses or primaries before Indiana in 2016. The number is inexact, because several states have not chosen their caucus dates. It’s a safe bet they’ll caucus long before May, in order to increase their influence.
Only about a dozen states will hold primaries later than Indiana.
In some years, we get lucky. If a presidential nomination race remains undecided when May rolls around, Indiana will get loads of attention as the only state voting in the first week of May. That happened in 2008 on the Democratic side.
Indiana became campaign central for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the days leading up to our primary in 2008. Former President Bill Clinton spoke in Angola and Kendallville. A visit by a president of any kind — even a controversial ex-president — ranks as a once-in-a-lifetime event around here.
But 2008 ranks as a rare exception — it was perhaps the first year with so much riding on Indiana’s vote since 1968. In most presidential election years, parties have their nominations all wrapped up by the time Hoosiers get around to voting. Names of presidential contenders may be on our primary ballots, but our votes carry no weight.
Indiana deserves to have as much influence as other states in choosing presidential nominees. If we moved our primary to March, we’d have a strong chance of swaying the results.
A meaningful presidential primary election would attract more Hoosier voters to participate. That would be good in more ways than giving us a voice in White House choices.
If more voters came out for primaries, our nominees in state and local races would be more representative of all Hoosiers. More people would get in the habit of voting. If people help choose nominees in the spring, they’ll come back to support those candidates in the fall.
It’s too late to do anything about moving up our primary date for 2016, but Indiana should begin looking seriously at an earlier primary as soon as possible. We should play a major role in choosing presidential nominees every four years — not just every few decades.