An attorney representing the Maryland State Board of Elections is asking a Circuit Court judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the legality of state-funded primary elections that exclude independent voters.
Five unaffiliated Maryland voters filed suit in May and asked a judge to declare that restrictions on primary elections are a violation of the state constitution. Elections officials, in a response filed Wednesday afternoon, asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed citing a lack of standing and a “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
Primary elections in Maryland are considered partially closed. Voters are required to affiliate with the Democratic or Republican parties to vote in most primary contests. Nonpartisan races such as the election of judges or school board members are excluded.
In May, five unaffiliated voters, represented by Republican former Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, filed a challenge in court. The 15-page lawsuit asserts that the restrictions — paid for with tax dollars — violate their right to vote.
Rutherford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In his response on behalf of the board, Daniel Kobrin, an assistant attorney general, wrote that a challenge based “solely as taxpayers” is insufficient to establish standing for such a challenge.
The motion filed by Korbin also asks the judge to declare that the five voters have no right to challenge the restrictions on primary elections because of previous court decisions.
Kobrin noted two decisions by the Supreme Court of Maryland that said “voters have no right under the state constitution to vote in the primary elections of a party to which they do not belong.”
In another case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld closed primaries and a political party’s First Amendment right “not to associate” and therefore cannot be required to allow unaffiliated voters to participate, according to the motion filed by the board’s attorney
Kobrin, in his motion, writes that “the merits of the unaffiliated voters’ challenge have already been rejected.”
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