I’m one of the 43% of Americans who according to Gallup, self-identify not as Republicans or Democrats, but as independent voters. There are more than one million such registered voters here in Pennsylvania and yet, we don’t have a say in primary elections even though our tax dollars are being used to stage such contests.
I believe that is a violation of my rights under the Free and Equal Election Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution (“[e]lections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”) because the applicable 1937 law doesn’t treat independent voters’ votes equally with those of party registrants.
Which is why I’m proud to be one of the four independent voters (including David Thornburgh, Chairman of Ballot PA Action) who are seeking relief via King’s Bench jurisdiction from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
I’ve always taken voting seriously.
I turned 18 in March of 1980 and was excited to immediately register, right in the thick of a heated presidential primary. Like many young voters, I followed in the footsteps of my parents—mine led me into the GOP.
That spring, I found myself torn between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, both of whom I had the chance to meet as a high school senior in the Philly suburbs. I skipped school one morning on a tip from a friend named Charlie Gerow, then a Reagan field coordinator, who told me that at a specified time, “Governor” Reagan would be walking into Esposito’s Meat Market at 9th and Christian Streets in Philadelphia’s Italian Market. My childhood friend Mike Stachel, Jr. and I staked out the spot, and sure enough, Reagan appeared—right on time. We passed between us a pocket Instamatic camera (unfortunately, without a flash!) to snap a photo with the future president.
A few days later, “Ambassador” George H.W. Bush visited the Shrine of Częstochowa in my hometown, Doylestown. I was there and similarly impressed. Upon returning home, I remember telling my parents that having met both the leading GOP candidates, I faced a dilemma in how to cast my first presidential ballot. About something else there was then no conflict – I felt secure in my initial party affiliation.
For the next 30 years, I remained a registered, active Republican and voted in every single primary and general election across Pennsylvania, dutifully re-registering whenever I moved—first in Bucks County, then Philadelphia, and later Montgomery County.
Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, I was firmly planted in the party of Reagan, Bush, Specter, and Thornburgh. While I occasionally voted for Democrats down ballot, I backed only Republican presidential candidates from 1980 through 2004. I even served in the Bush 41 administration having been appointed by the White House as a HUD Regional Administrator, overseeing public housing across five states and Washington, D.C., reporting to Secretary Jack Kemp.
But the GOP I joined in 1980 was changing. By 2008, I was ready to break ranks in my voting at the top of the ticket.
I was deeply shaped by the events of 9/11—my native Bucks County lost more lives (18) that day than any other county in Pennsylvania. I was disillusioned by the Bush administration’s pivot from pursuing the perpetrators to a nation-building mission in the Middle East. And when, in a 2008 radio interview with me, Senator Barack Obama pledged to pursue Osama bin Laden even if it meant invading the sovereignty of Pakistan—words that would later prove prescient—I decided to cast my ballot for him. Still, I stayed registered as a Republican.
Domestically, President Obama proposed a market-based healthcare plan that relied on private insurers offering competitive plans in exchanges, yet it was derided by critics as “socialism.” That rhetoric—and the party’s growing detachment from reason—left me alienated. The GOP no longer reflected my values (nor did my values align with the Democratic Party). The party of Reagan’s pragmatic conservatism I once joined had given way to something angrier and more extreme.
As a media personality, I also felt boxed-in by a label that no longer fit. Audiences often judge you first by your party ID. I no longer wanted to be introduced on television with a “Republican” chyron. And I don’t think I should have to decide between my job and my vote. So during a routine driver’s license renewal in 2010, when asked if I wanted to change my party registration, I said yes—and became an independent, or “non-party affiliate,” as we call them here.
To this day, I’ve never missed a general election. (In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever missed an election for which I’ve been eligible to vote although it is possible I missed a primary where the sole matter of consideration for independents was a single ballot initiative.) That’s how much I value the privilege. And it frustrates me that Pennsylvania completely excludes independent voters from participating in primaries, especially at a time of record independent self-identification.
When initially asked by Gallup in 2024, Americans were most likely to identify as independents (43%) in comparison to those who said they were Democrats (28%) and Republicans (28%). That ties the record high for similar Gallup surveys, previously registered in 2014 and 2023.
In Pennsylvania, there are currently 1,420,950 voters, or 16% of the total registered electorate who are not registered as Republican or Democrat. Here’s another way to think of that: According to Jeremy Gruber, the Senior Vice President at Open Primaries, fourteen states, including Nebraska and New Hampshire, have less voters in total, than the number of those who are independent voters in Pennsylvania. Gruber notes that there are 30 million independent voters nationwide who are precluded from voting due to closed primaries.
That means we don’t get a say in primary elections which are often destiny, effectively determining the outcome in a majority of Pennsylvania state House and state Senate races. By the time we get a say in the general election, the contest is often already over.
Our missing voice is often one of moderation which is in short supply in our polarized times.
I firmly believe that when independent voters are excluded from the nomination process, we foster the rise of the extremes at both ends of the political spectrum. Better would be a system that forces candidates to have to appeal to a broader cross-section of society including those for whom compromise is not a dirty word.
And so, I am honored to have my name associated with this Petition.
And I am grateful to Shanin Specter and the lawyers at Kline & Specter as well as Matthew Fontana and the lawyers at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath for their extraordinary work in this regard.
Michael A. Smerconish
