Tennessee voter registration forms do not ask the applicant to choose a party, and Tennessee is considered an open primary state. But in the May 3, 2022 primary for local partisan office, a Tennessee voter in Madison County was threatened with prosecution because he is known to be a Democrat, yet he voted in the Republican primary. The voter, Gabe Hart, describes this experience here. As he relates, the Secretary of State, Tre Hargett, in a speech, agreed with Madison County election officials and said insincere voters cannot vote in primaries.

See this commentary from the editor of the Jackson Sun, who disagrees with the Secretary of State.

Tennessee has its primary for federal and state office on August 4, 2022, so this issue may come up again. Thanks to Michael Drucker for this news.

On June 7, Montana held contested primaries for the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian Parties. Any voter was free to choose any party’s primary ballot. The Green Party is also on the ballot but had no contested primaries, so no Green Party primary ballots were printed up.

In the U.S. House race, 2nd (eastern) district, which was the only part of Montana with a contested Libertarian primary, there were 97,000 votes cast in the Republican primary, 37,596 votes cast in the Democratic primary, and 2,037 votes cast in the Libertarian primary. See the results here.

The last time there was a contested minor party primary in Montana was 2020, when the Green Party had a contest for U.S. Senate, in which 759 votes were cast. The winner of that primary did not appear on the general election ballot because the Montana Supreme Court removed the party from the ballot after its primary was over.

As of the close of business on Friday, June 17, the California June primary vote for second-place in the Insurance Commissioner election is almost tied. The results: Robert Howell, Republican, 1,124,820; Marc Levine, Democrat, 1,123,348.

The incumbent, Ricardo Lara, is far in the lead for first place.