Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
3. In many states you can only vote
Sun Jan 10, 2016, 01:57 PM
Jan 2016

in the primary of your declared political party. Not sure to what extent the voter rolls are public. Some states, for instance Kansas when I lived there, allowed you to change your political party on the day of the primary, if that's the one you decided to vote in. Then you could change it back the next day.

I'm of mixed opinion about that. For the first decade or two of my voting life I registered Independent, and never paid attention to things like primaries. I almost always voted for Democrats, and with one move to a new state registered as a Dem. In Kansas, a heavily Republican state, lots of people I knew registered Republican so as to vote in the primaries. I always argued against that for at least three reasons: One, let the Republicans take care of their own; two, the people who did this seemed pretty evenly split between voting for the most extreme candidate on the theory that then the Dem would be elected as the reasonable choice and those who voted for the most reasonable candidate knowing the Republican was very likely to win the general; and three, with Democratic voter registration so very low, people were extremely reluctant to run as a Dem at any level, thinking that there was no chance at all of winning in the general.

I realize the Presidential primary is quite a different creature. Personally, even in a year where we have an incumbent Democratic President now running for re-election, I'm not going to vote for any Republican candidate in the primary. And I don't think any Dem should be doing that, either. Right now we have two strong candidates and a third who is trying to make himself heard, and our tribe should care a lot about which one of them gets our nomination, and then go out and support that candidate against whatever idiot the Republicans nominate, since they are all idiots.

Just my opinion.

Latest Discussions»Region Forums»Michigan»Michigan will be having a...»Reply #3