John Avlon has this piece at CNN, criticizing closed primaries. His argument is that closed primaries produced two undesirable outcomes in 2010: the Republican closed primary in Delaware nominated Christine O’Donnell for U.S. Senate, and the Democratic closed primary in the District of Columbia produced City Councilman Vincent Gray for Mayor.

Not everyone agrees that O’Donnell and Gray were “bad”, but even for those readers who agree with Avlon about those two politicians, the piece is not convincing because it ignores all the 2010 instances in which “bad” people were nominated in open primaries. “Bad” in the Avlon context, means politicians who are perceived as “far left” or “far right.”

Contradicting the Avlon thesis are these examples: (1) Joe Miller was nominated for U.S. Senate by the Alaska Republican Party, even though independent voters were permitted to participate. Alaska has more than twice as many independent voters as it has Republican voters; (2) Paul LePage was nominated for Governor by the Maine Republican Party, even though independent voters were able to participate. Maine has 27% more independent voters than it has Republican registrants; (3) Tom Emmer was nominated for Governor by the Minnesota Republican Party, even though Minnesota has open primaries; (4) Alvin M. Greene was nominated for U.S. Senate by the South Carolina Democratic Party, even though South Carolina has open primaries; (5) Scott Walker was nominated for Governor by the Wisconsin Republican Party, even though Wisconsin has open primaries.

Avlon’s piece also has a factual error. He says Washington, D.C. voters were not able to vote in the general election for Adrian Fenty, the outgoing Mayor who was defeated for re-election in the Democratic primary. But D.C. voters not only were able to vote for Fenty in the general election, 29,559 of the voters did vote for Fenty in the general election, by writing him in. Fenty could conceivably have been elected as a write-in if he had asked voters to vote for him, but he refused to lend any support to the write-in campaign organized by some of his supporters.

Two-thirds of members of the Tea Party Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives are from open primary states. Political science research by Boris Shor and Seth Masket has shown that type of primary system is not correlated with partisanship and polarization in state legislatures. Finally, Avlon presents no evidence at all that Christine O’Donnell and Vincent Gray would have been defeated if their primaries had been open. Survey research has rebutted the idea that independents are less extreme than party members.

As noted earlier, on September 9 Americans Elect sent an e-mail to many of its delegates, encouraging them to volunteer to help build the organization. On September 19, Americans Elect issued a press release, expanding on this idea. The organization hopes to find at least one volunteer in each State Senate district in the United States, which would be 2,051 individuals. These volunteers would try to enroll at least 500 more delegates.

The press release says the pool of delegates “will come from registered voters of all ideological backgrounds.”

The initiative is called “Project 500”. Americans Elect will provide volunteers with tools, suggestions and support to facilitate their outreach. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news. The text of the press release does not seem to be on the Americans Elect web page.

On September 18, Berlin, Germany, held state elections. See this story about the results. The Green Party boosted its share of the vote from 13% in the last state election, to 18%. As a result, the Green Party is expected to join the ruling state coalition.

The Pirate Party polled over 8% of the vote. The BBC describes it as “little-known”, and says its platform includes greater personal data protection and legalizing marijuana.