Minnesota has an open Primary; anybody can choose which party to vote for, without anybody knowing.
Once, back in 1992, I think, we had to choose which party primary you voted in, and it was recorded (and is still on your voting record). But I guess people objected (also slows down the voting process), because it was changed after that year. We give out ballots with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other, and a voter chooses which side to vote on (only one). I think that’s the way it will still work at the August Primary.
But new this year, we had a Presidential-only primary in March. At that you had to choose a button for which party, and then you got the ballot for that party. Of the 2 parties that were participating in the Primary. There are 2 other major parties in Minnesota, but they are choosing their candidates in some other way. Maybe in smoke-filled rooms.* The choice that a voter made is recorded, but is kept fairly confidential in the polling place. After the election, voting info is public record, except that which party people chose is only available to the heads of the 4 major parties. (But what they do with it is not regulated. The Democratic Party has a published policy telling what they will do with that info (help Democratic candidates, raise money for the party, never sell it to commercial businesses) but the other parties haven’t said what they will do. Legally, they could raise money by selling the list (voters name, address, phone, email, birthdate, party choice, etc.) to every spammer around, if they chose. But people would probably object if that were found out.)
Even though this party choice isn’t included in the public record, there were still a lot of people who objected to it. Our official Election Judge response was “We don’t set the rules, your Legislators do. Talk to them if you don’t like this.” I think a lot did; there are bills pending to remove the requirement to record which party a person votes in. But that hasn’t passed yet.
Possibly literally. These 2 other parties are the Grassroots Party and Legalize Marijuana Now party.
I know in Canada, you have to buy a membership to participate in a party nomination process. Just before election time, prospective candidates are out trying to sell memberships to people who might support them to get the necessary number of votes to secure the nomination; but actual participation in this process is limited, I have seen nomination elections with as few as 100 people at the meeting. On top of that, the nominee must get signatures from X members of the party. In ridings with no incumbent or an incumbent being challenged, and especially ones where the candidate for a particular party has a good chance of winning (or is a shoo-in) then the nomination fights can get nasty and the meeting can reach the level of several thousand attending to vote (usually secret paper ballots) and there’s all sorts of allegations of candidates buying the memberships for the body count, etc. But basically in ridings of maybe 50,000 or so eligible voters, maybe 100 up to 2000 pick the party’s candidate. This is over and above, anyone can run in an election and need a deposit of $X and signatures of IIRC 200 eligible voters of that riding. It’s just to get party name - and the central party brass often reserve the right to overturn nominations and/or parachute a candidate into the riding. By collecting a lot of the political donations, the central brass wield a lot of clout over the grass roots.
So there’s a party organization, you need to buy a membership to be a voting member of the party, and the voting members basically elect the officials who run the party organization, subject to the same petty political machinations and influences as any such organization - I would expect the same organizational details apply for American political parties, but much bigger and with a much larger budget at stake. The only difference I assumeis asking the non-dues-paying public to participate in selecting the candidate?
AFAIK, the governing entity of a party is usually selected in some way that’s connected to the masses (who show up). It might be a multistep process but it wouldn’t normally involve “buying a membership” or “dues.”
Like, in Ohio, it’s a very simple process. Both major parties elect members of the state and county committees at primary elections. You vote for president or whoever at one end of the ballot, and your precinct’s representative on your party’s county committee at the other end of the ballot. These committees elect officers and are responsible for the other functions where “the party” exists as an organization.
In other states, it might be a complicated multi-step process where the general public is invited to attend a precinct caucus, and the caucus selects delegates to a county convention, and the county convention selects delegates to a district convention, and the district convention selects delegates to a state convention, and the state convention chooses the party officers. (This is what the Iowa caucuses were actually created to do. The presidential stuff is tacked on.)
Yes, that’s how it works in Minnesota; each meeting elects delegates to the next higher level of Convention. But it starts at a Precinct Convention, which is open to everyone. (You sign-in under a statement that you agree with the party principles and aren’t a member of any other political party, but it isn’t much enforced.)
And nobody has to pay any dues or fees to participate. (You’re asked to donate, and at higher levels they push more, explaining how much per person it costs to hold the convention, but it’s still a voluntary donation. Way up at the State or National Convention, there are mandatory Registration Fees, but even then low-income people can request that these be waived.) Our party is pretty definite about not requiring people to pay to participate. Like people can request copies of documents in Braille (that’s quite expensive!), but we can’t ask them to pay those costs.
But one thing about this: the number of Delegates for each level is restricted. It’s set based on the number of votes for Democrats from that area in the last election. So at my neighbor precinct caucus, in a heavily-Democratic area with high voter turnout, we had 33 delegate spots to the next level Convention. But with not much controversy locally, there were only 18 people attending, and only 11 wanted to be Delegates, so real easy to go on to the next level. But at the higher levels, it gets more competitive – there are always more people wanting to be delegates than there are spots available.
