A new Independent Center focus group reveals a primary system that most independent voters find invisible, confusing, and deeply unsatisfying.
Policy debates about open primaries tend to focus on outcomes: turnout numbers, partisan competitiveness, whether ranked-choice or jungle primaries produce more moderate winners. What they rarely test is something more basic — what do independent voters actually know about the primary system? Do they feel it works for them? And would opening it up change anything?
To find out, the Independent Center conducted an online focus group in April 2026 with 15 self-identified independents across 12 states, ranging in age from 18 to 57. We asked five questions spanning awareness, participation, satisfaction, reform ideas, and the hypothetical impact of an all-candidate open primary. The 75 responses we collected paint a complicated, honest, and often striking picture of where independent Americans stand.
Half of Independent Voters Have Never Heard of Open Primaries
Start with the vocabulary problem. When we asked participants whether they'd heard the term "open primaries," the group split almost exactly down the middle. About half had a working understanding — knowing that open primaries allow voters to participate regardless of party registration. The other half had never encountered the term or held a vague or partially inaccurate definition.
The guesses from those who'd never heard it were revealing. Hannah, 23, from Idaho thought it might be "something personal, something open to yourself." Meloney, 31, from Illinois imagined someone "open to saying their political opinion in public." Amber, 18, from Arkansas connected it to being independent and "open to voting for anyone."
These guesses aren't wildly off. They point toward a common-sense intuition about openness that actually aligns with the concept — but the technical vocabulary is missing. That gap matters. You can't build public support for a reform that most people don't have a name for.
The lesson for open primary advocates is direct: before persuasion, there's education. The conversation has to start with what the term means and why it matters — not with policy arguments that assume a shared starting point that doesn't yet exist.
Most Don't Vote in Primaries — and the Reasons Are More Than Apathy
Primary participation in our group was uneven, and the reasons tell a more textured story than the standard "voter apathy" explanation.
Some participants are consistent, engaged primary voters. Adam, 54, from South Carolina not only votes in every primary but works the polls — he sees it as a patriotic obligation. Steven, 47, from Maryland votes in federal and state primaries reliably. Kevin, 20, from Ohio made a deliberate choice to prioritize state and local primaries because he felt they had a more direct impact on his community. "I voted on those to make a bigger impact at a smaller scale," he told us.
But several others who vote in general elections skip primaries entirely without a clear explanation. Scott, 57, from Missouri said he's "typically not one who votes in primaries" and couldn't fully account for the gap — suggesting it may be habit and inertia rather than a principled decision.
Then there are those who simply couldn't participate. Hannah couldn't vote because she's a full-time caregiver for a disabled child. Cherie, 47, from South Carolina was in the hospital. Tara, 30, from Kentucky is a recently disenfranchised felon who is now working to restore her voting rights. Armoni, 19, from Vermont was too young in 2024.
These aren't cases of people who don't care. They are voters who faced genuine structural barriers: medical emergencies, caregiving burdens, criminal justice consequences, age restrictions. Reforms that make voting more accessible — not just more open in a partisan sense — would find a ready audience in this group.
Below the Presidential Level, the Ballot Feels Broken
When we asked participants about their satisfaction with candidates in races below the presidential level, the dominant mood was frustration. Not abstract frustration — specific, concrete frustration about how candidates reach the ballot and what voters know about them.
The information gap was a recurring theme. Heather, 42, from Texas said candidates "didn't take the time to reach out to the public and let themselves be known." She voted, but without confidence in her choices.
The feeling of pre-determination came up again and again. Kyle, 38, from New York said he felt "certain candidates were definitely favored and pushed by the media over others — the options already felt predetermined." Meloney described her choices as "picking who was worse — who was better out of two bad choices."
Jonathan, 43, from North Carolina put his finger on something important: candidates running unopposed. "It almost feels like if you're an uneducated voter you're just going to vote for them because they're the only person in that position." He's abstained from voting in races where he didn't know the candidate and they ran unopposed. That's not apathy. That's a rational response to a broken ballot.
Amber, 18, from Arkansas — who has never voted — offered the sharpest outside-looking-in perspective: "A lot of times when I do see who's on the ballots, I'm kinda glad I don't vote — because I've never agreed with anybody that's been on the ballots. I think we need a whole new political party, to be honest."
What Would They Change? Two Camps, One Diagnosis
We asked participants to imagine changing one thing about how candidates get on the ballot in their state. The responses split into two camps — but notably, both camps agreed the current system is broken.
Camp One: Open it up. Kyle wants equal financial footing so "anybody who's a U.S. citizen should be able to make a serious run for it." Tara, from Kentucky, noted that candidates tend to come from "affluent backgrounds and Ivy League schools" and wants the middle class to have a fighting chance. Hannah wants a system that makes it "more accessible and easy to get people onto the ballot who are more deserving and have more care for their state."
Camp Two: Close it down. Scott, from Missouri, believes all primaries should be closed to prevent one party from strategically voting in the other's primary. Adam, from South Carolina, put it bluntly: "In South Carolina, it's an open primary, so Democrats could vote for a weak Republican and overthrow the Republican vote. I think that's wrong."
These are genuinely opposed visions. But beneath both sits the same diagnosis: the current system serves parties and money more than voters. That shared frustration is where reform conversations can start, even when the proposed solutions diverge.
Other ideas that emerged: Jonathan proposed ranked-choice voting to eliminate runoff elections. Heather wanted candidates required to hold public meetings before appearing on the ballot. Armoni, 19, from Vermont raised the gender dimension — she doesn't see enough women running and getting elected, and she'd change that.
The Bigger Picture: What This Focus Group Tells Us
Five themes cut across all five questions.
Awareness is a reform communication problem, not a secondary concern. You can't win support for a reform that people don't have a name for. Open primary advocates need to invest in vocabulary-building before making policy arguments.
Structural barriers — not apathy — explain much of primary non-participation. Caregiving, health crises, disenfranchisement, and age shut real voters out of 2024. Format reforms matter less if accessibility barriers remain.
Candidate quality is upstream of format. For a significant share of disengaged voters, changing the rules of the ballot won't solve the problem. Who's on it matters more than how you choose among them. Reform advocates should treat these as complementary challenges, not competing priorities.
The open-vs.-closed divide doesn't map cleanly onto ideology. Heather, who leans Republican, supports open primaries. Scott and Adam, also Republican-leaning, strongly oppose them. The ideological mapping isn't predictable, and advocates shouldn't assume uniform opposition from any quarter.
Young voters are watching — and many are already discouraged. Amber, 18, and Armoni, 19, have formed their views early. Amber is unregistered and cynical. Armoni doesn't think her vote matters. Kevin, 20, voted locally and made a deliberate, thoughtful choice. This generation isn't monolithic — but the pessimists in it will carry those views for years unless something changes their experience.
The primary system is, for most of these voters, invisible, confusing, and unsatisfying. That's the central finding — and it's a challenge that belongs to everyone who cares about electoral reform, candidate diversity, and the health of American democracy. Open primaries may be part of the answer. But the answer also has to include who's on the ballot, how easy it is to get there, and whether voters believe the whole enterprise is worth their time.
That's a bigger project than any single reform. But it starts with listening to the voters the system has mostly left out. Which is exactly what we did here.
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