On July 14, influential Democratic and Republican state legislators and party officials agreed to work for a different type of presidential primary in Michigan in 2008 and future elections.

Past Michigan presidential primaries have been secret-party- choice primaries. However, what is likely for 2008 is a presidential primary in which the voter must publicly choose a particular party’s primary ballot. Both types of primary are “open primaries” under the classic definition of “open primary”.

Under the 2008 proposal, the parties will then have access to the list of voters that chose their party’s primary. The bill to accomplish this change hasn’t been introduced yet, but it is about to be introduced.

Although Michigan has 6 qualified parties, only the Democratic and Republican Parties have their own primaries; the other qualified parties nominate by convention. The Democratic and Republican Parties want a presidential primary in which voters must publicly choose the primary ballot they wish to vote in. They feel that, under such a system, “strategic voting” will be minimized. Democrats believe that the old secret-party-choice system was responsible for George Wallace winning their 1972 primary (Democrats believe that many Republicans voted for Wallace, just to make trouble for the Democratic Party).