California got rid of “open” primaries after the situation above took place. A number of people from Party “A” voted for the weaker of the Party “B” candidates to make sure their guy won the general election. But you can do the same thing by just switching registration between the primary and the general.
The only time I was ever a registered Democrat was the time I did so to vote against Tom Hayden in a primary.
In my post, I said pay whatever dues there may be. I didn’t say there were mandatory dues.
In more than 35 years as a registered voter I have never been contacted by a political party who said “We see you voted our ballot in the primary. Why don’t you come to our caucas meeting,” or anything remotely resembling trying to get me to become a “regular.”
I also said “no one goes into the voting booth to see how you really voted.”
I don’t know how California’s laws are written, but in Ohio, you can only switch one direction in any three elections. You could pretend to jump to skew one primary, but the next time you came back to jump back to your original party you would be forced to sit out that primary or stay with the party to wehich you jumped. (You can register with the “wrong” party and always vote to mess up the other’s primaries, but you can’t jump back and forth from election to election.) After two consecutive elections on the same party, you can go back to your original party.
Obviously, each state will have separate rules governing this behavior.
You didn’t say there were mandatory dues. But you did say that paying those dues was required to be a part of a political party. And that’s just plain incorrect. Registering is joining a political party in this country, that’s the long, short and narrow of it.
I was wondering if your statement that no one went in was implying that perhaps that is something parties would do if you really were a member.
And if you haven’t gotten all sorts of spam mail from political parties after voting in primaries… well, you’re luckier than I. Three primary cycles, three different onslaughts of “Come help out with the campaign… and give us lots of money!” letters. 
The way voter registration works in most places is designed to make you think that you only have two choices and that you’ll be at a significant political disadvantage if you don’t register Republican or Democrat. I think it’s deliberate and that it was made that way through a tacit agreement between the two main parties to keep independent candidates and new parties out of the game.
I absolutely HATE partisan politics and have been registered as an Independent since I started voting. I had way too many arguments with my father over politics when I was younger to register Republican and vote a party ticket the way he does. I like actually thinking for myself, voting for the person I think will do the best job, and learning about issues so that I can vote based on what I think is right rather than what my party affiliation “obliges” me to do. In my opinion, as long as people continue to register R or D, they are supporting a system that stifles choice and decreases freedom.
If you think the only two choices are a douchebag and a shit sandwich, why don’t you do something about it?
In Alaska we have the quaint system of having a closed Republican primary and an open Democrat primary. The Republican party decided on this for the very reason stated above about California. It’s to prevent evil Dems from crossing party lines to put a weak candidate on the ticket. Considering the voter turnout, general population in this state, and the fact that most people are registered as ‘undeclared’, it’s pure paranoia. Independents and undeclareds can vote either Republican or open ballot. Dems can only vote the open ballot which contains Dems, Greens, Independents, etc.
I’ve never registered as either a Democrat or a Republican, and if there are any levies or issues that are voted on during the primaries, I just ask for an “Issues Only” ballot when I go to vote.
I’m sorry this is just not true. Committeemen are never politicians, although most politicians are former comitteemen. It’s true that you can get on the ballot with signatures of registered voters, but that will only get you on the ballot, not on the party line. If I decide to run ofr governor, I can run as an independent , and be on the bottom of the ballot, or I can run as a Republican, and appear at the top of the ballot. In order to have a chance to run as a Republican, though, I need signatures of registered Republicans. This is why my mother insisted thath I register as a Democrat, regardless of who I voted for. My father used to gather signatures for Democratic candidates, and in a small town in Upstate New York, getting enough can require a lot of travel.
I’m sorry, but this is plain wrong. “Membership” in a U.S. political party is an extremely nebulous issue, but one thing is sure, registering is not the way to get it. No matter which party you are registered for, you don’t get any privileges or obligations of membership, whatever that might be. You are simply a civilian foter, and that’s it.
In fact, I believe in many states, you can’t really “register” for a party. Ohio was given as an example previously. In Ohio, you don’t really register for a party. You simply request a particular party’s primary ballot. There is a limit regarding how often you can switch to a different primary ballot, but really, that’s a rather tame limitation.
My position is that the only people who are really “members” of a U.S. political party are those who have been elected to office as a nominee of that party.
Not true. I am a member of the Democratic Party. All I had to do was check the box when I registered. I have all the rights of a member of the Democratic Party in New York State. If I wanted, I could have registered without belonging to a party. I would appear on the rolls as a “Blank,” in that case.
To echo
And to back up kevbo
The District of Columbia is a cite – the Mayoral Democratic primary is, for all intents and purposes, the “real” election and the general election is a formality (akin to the electoral College). If you want a vote in choosing who the next Mayor will be (even if that is choosing between Democrat A and Democrat B) you need to register to vote as a democrat and vote in the primary – or resign yourself to casting a symbolic vote as a Republican/Independent, (or libertarian, communist, larouche-ite or for those fringe guys who end up on the ballot with names like World B. Free etc.) in the General Election … but that is all it is symbolic. (N.B. not saying the vote doesn’t “count” just that it is symbolic).
Wasn’t that long ago that this was true in parts of Maryland (the PG County Executive Race comes to mind) the choice is to vote in the Democratic primary “for real” or cast your vote symbolically for someone else in the General election. Since Maryland has a Republican governor I’m going to say that has changed in the last decade… and is no longer as Ironclad a rule as it once was (but it is pretty certain)
Your grandmother must work in a place with a plethora of poll workers!
In my area, the clerks (who run the elections) have to take who they can get. Political party alignment with the clerk does not determine who gets to preside over any particular poll site. It’s whoever is crazy/masochistic enough to serve as the chair.
But speaking generally, in my state poll workers DO have to declare an affiliation. You don’t have to be a “member” of the party, but you have to say what you consider yourself. Then the clerk must assign workers in a way to be sure there are both Democrats and Republicans at every poll site.
Certain activities (such as removing ballots from an overfull counting machine) have to be done in the presence of poll workers who represent two different parties. You can’t have only Democrats or only Greens or only Republicans handling ballots. That’s why you must have workers from different parties there.
Political parties define their own membership, n’est pas? And every bit of polling data I have ever seen shows parties defining their own membership numbers by voers registered for their party (in Ohio, perhaps it is by primary voters from the last election).
Yes that is how a party in Ohio would define its membership. But back to the OP, does just choosing a particular ballot in an open primary confer any benefits upon the voter? No. Unless you think getting party mailers to be a benefit.
In a state with a closed primary the only real ‘benefit’, if you can call it that, of registering with a party is the right to cast a ballot in that party’s primary. That’s it.
If you want other ‘rights’, then you have to be elected or appointed to some sort of party committee at a minimum. At that point you get the right to vote on municipal and state party officers which you wouldn’t have as just a lowly voter. You also have the right to vote to give the party endorsement to candidates, which can certainly offer advantages in a contested primary.
Joining a smaller party can actually offer more opportunities for involvement such as the chance to attend state and local conventions or even national conventions where the presidential candidates are selected. Although this level of membership may or may not cost you dues depending on the party.
Here in Washington, we don’t have to register with a party, but we do have to pick a party ballot to vote in the primary. This year I got three ballots, with instructions to throw two of them away (one of them is nonpartisan and only includes candidates for judicial positions, etc.). The choice isn’t recorded anywhere, and it doesn’t get you on any mailing lists.
Duverger’s Law: when candidates are chosen by a plurality vote, as they are in the US (*), a two-party system emerges, and third parties can only survive by displacing one of the two viable parties.
(* except in San Francisco, which uses IRV)