{"id":226728,"date":"2026-06-24T10:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T10:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226728\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T10:59:22","slug":"pennsylvanias-primary-election-system-remains-flawed-letter-letters-to-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226728\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania\u2019s primary election system remains flawed [letter] | Letters To The Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"justify\">Years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor stating that Pennsylvania\u2019s primary election system is flawed, and I see no reason to change that opinion (<a href=\"https:\/\/lancasteronline.com\/opinion\/letters_to_editor\/pa-voters-deserve-an-open-primary\/article_08e72160-3584-11e7-b59b-8bc16956e000.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u201cPa. voters deserve an open primary,\u201d<\/a> May 11, 2017 LNP | LancasterOnline).<\/p>\n<p>However, this letter takes my position to the next level.<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania currently has a closed primary election that is essentially controlled by the respective political parties\u2019 endorsement process \u2014 but this is just the tip of the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Both parties endorse candidates for local, state and federal government offices and effectively dictate how people are to vote. In the opinion of this writer, that\u2019s just wrong!<\/p>\n<p>On the day of the primary election, I was volunteering at a particular polling place and heard other volunteers telling voters, \u201cThese are the endorsed party candidates.\u201d This is not how the system is supposed to work. The election process, whether for a primary or general election, should be the people\u2019s election, not the respective political parties\u2019 election.<\/p>\n<p>The conclusion, at least to this writer, is obvious: The primary endorsement and election process is not only flawed \u2014 it is counterproductive, manipulative, disenfranchising and, worst of all, the process is corrupt.<\/p>\n<p>David J. Bowie<\/p>\n<p>Elizabethtown<\/p>\n<p>\n                Success! An email has been sent to  with a link to confirm list signup.\n            <\/p>\n<p>\n                Error! There was an error processing your request.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor stating that Pennsylvania\u2019s primary election system is flawed, and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[87627,13037,87076,28,30,29,50,1824],"class_list":["post-226728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-endorsements","tag-letter-to-the-editor","tag-open-primary","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-politics","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}