It's taken a while but in December, Connecticut's major political parties began to show signs they were finally becoming aware that the political landscape has been changing since about the middle of the last century.

First, the Republican Party's chairman, Jerry Labriola announced the formation of an Election Reforms Subcommittee and ordered them to report back by the end of January.

"Everything is on the table," said Mr. Labriola. "I've placed no boundaries on the subcommittee."

Then, following the retirement of Democratic Chairwoman Nancy Di Nardo, her likely successor, former New Haven Town Chairman Nick Balletto, promised he'd try to make the Democratic Party "more inclusive" if he's elected by the 72-member state central committee Jan. 21. He's the only announced candidate.

"We'd like to open the party," said Mr. Balletto.

With everything on the table for the Republicans and a wish to open the party already the goal of the likely Democratic leader, can open primaries be far behind?

It seems to depend upon what "everything on the table" and "opening the party" turn out to mean. Mr. Balletto said he hadn't yet considered open primaries, an understandable position since he still has to be elected by a party that has chosen to be closed up to now, along with the opposition party.

As things stand now, only Democrats and Republicans can vote in their respective party primaries. The unaffiliated, the biggest voting block, have to sit out. With no investment in the winnowing process, many unaffiliated also end up sitting out the general election.

The good news is that both of these party leaders seem to be acknowledging at long last that their parties cannot survive as fiefdoms for their ideologically pure bases.

Connecticut currently has 785,887 registered Democrats, 434,708 registered Republicans and 915,957 registered voters who pledge allegiance to neither party. Despite their becoming the incredibly shrinking political parties, both the Democrats and Republicans have jealously guarded their inalienable rights to choose the candidates the majority of voters will have to consider on Election Day.

This has made the unaffiliated less than enthusiastic about choosing from the selections. It was certainly evident in the most recent contest for governor, with large numbers of voters expressing their disdain for both of the party-endorsed candidates, Dannel Malloy and Tom Foley. If the parties continue to exclude what's getting close to a million Connecticut voters from the primaries, voting may very well continue to go down and small "d" democracy will be the loser.

Twenty states already have open primaries, despite fears that the other party will manipulate a party's selection process. This is possible, of course, but the most zealous party members are usually reluctant to give up the right to choose their own party's candidate for any reason and a party member who chooses to vote in the other party's primary loses the right to vote in his or her own.

In any event, the potential for cross-party shennanigans can be minimized by only allowing unaffiliated voters to choose their primary of choice, while not permitting Republicans to pick Democratic candidates and vice versa.

Other true believers argue open primaries are unconstitutional because in opening the party primaries to aliens, their freedom of association is violated. Again, there is probably some truth to the argument, but these party zealots, also known as the base, may find they have strengthened their freedom to associate by weakening their ability to win elections.

The Republicans, having not won a state election in eight years, have the most to gain by welcoming the unaffiliated into their primaries. It will take only one party to act, because if one does it, the other won't be far behind. And if that happens, Connecticut will be blessed with more open elections and maybe even better candidates.