From time to time I see someone write “I’m registered as a republican voter” and it got me thinking…
When you register to vote in the USA do you have to be registered as affiliated to a specific party? If so, why? If not, why register as being tied to a specific party? Does that mean you’re not allowed to vote for the other parties or do they automatically count your vote as for your party or is there another reason?
I’ve heard that as well. You don’t have declare any party affiliation here in Texas.
It depends on the state. The only time it makes a difference is during the primary elections, when parties are choose who they want to nominate. In closed primary states, Republicans only vote for Republicans, Demoncrats only vote for Democrats, and Independents don’t get to vote for anybody.
This confused me also. (And still does, to be honest). You might find this thread more enlightening than I did.
Simple answer:
Nobody is required to declare a party affiliation when they register to vote. However, if you wish to vote in the primary elections in a closed-primary state (most of them) then you must register as a member of a specific party, as you are only allowed to vote in one party’s primaries.
Party registration does not affect voting in the general elections, and you may vote for any candidate of any party.
Each state holds primary elections to help determine who the Presidential candidates for each major party will be.
To illustrate: right now, there are 9 candidates who want to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President. So, next year, there will be a series of Democratic Party primary elections in each state, in which voters will choose the person they want to run against George Bush.
In SOME states, like New York, only registered members of the Democratic Party will be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary. In other states, like Texas, you don’t have to register as a member of either party to vote in a primary. I’m a Republican, but I COULD choose to vote in the Texas Democratic primary if I wanted to.
So, in a state like New York, a left-leaning Democrat will do very well in the primary. But a Democrat who wants to win the Texas primary probably needs to attract some Republican and independent voters… so a more conservative Democrat is likely to do well in Texas.
Similarly, since Democrats and independents are allowed to vote in the Republican primaries in states like Massachusetts, Republicans have to try to attract moderate voters if they want to win the MAssachusetts primary.
I know the reason for this. It is basically a way to prevent one party from loading the ballot box with votes for the weaker candidate of the other party. An example would be Joe Smith and Bob Jones are Republicans running for the Senate. Smith is considered the leading candidate and has a good chance to win it all if he wins the primary. Al Johnson is the leading Democrat as his opponent, Jane Doe, is a newcomer to politics, she has no real chance of winning the primary. The Democrats all get together and decide it would be in their best interest to see Jones win the Republican primary instead of Smith. To help see this happen, they promote Jones and then vote for him in the primary. Being good Democrats, this will be the only vote any will make for a candidate of the Republican party.
In a stunner, Jones wins the Republican nomination while Johnson wins the Democratic vote as expected. Johnson wins the November election just as the party planned months earlier. By having to vote a straight party ticket in the primary is one way to stuff the ballot box in a twisted sort of way. The state of Washington and many other states are being forced to use the “Louisiana primary” method because the Supreme Court banned blanket primaries. A quick Google search turned up this info.
That line should read: By having to vote a straight party ticket in the primary is a way to avoid stuffing the ballot box in a twisted sort of way.
In our state, only the Republicans have a closed primary. Everyone else can vote for whomever they please, except for a Republican candidate. The logic is that all those bad dems and others will cast votes for the weakest pubbie candidate so he can be beaten in the general election by the dems. How quaint…how conspiratorial…how…Republican of them.
NC’s election laws are rather odd on registering with a party. You can register to vote for a particular party (Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians last time around), and if you register for one then you can only vote in that primary. However, you can also register as independant, which lets pick one party’s ballot on election day. There’s really no reason to register for a particular party, but most people do for some reason.
Whether the notion of non-Republicans voting to weaken the candidacy of the Republicans in Chefguys state is true or not - and I can’t say that I’ve ever read an analysis that shows this - I find the concept of open primaries to be bizarre. If I want to belong to a party, one of the perks, even rights, of being a party member is surely to participate in choosing the candidates of that party. Why should people who are independent - or worse, avowed member of other political parties - have any say in the matter whatsoever?
Can anyone from an open primary state explain why this route was chosen there?
To spell out some assumptions in the previous posts for non-U.S. readers:
You may vote for whatever declared candidate you choose in the general election. In most places you may also write in the name of your choice to fill that particular elected office (some states have restrictions on write-ins).
Where there is more than one person vying for a party’s nomination for an office in the general election, a primary election is held, in which usually only members of that party may vote (although generally all primaries are held at the same time). As noted above, some states (Texas in particular) have “open primaries” where you may vote for a nominee regardless of your party affiliation or lack thereof.
Elections (general or primary) are conducted by the County Board of Elections in most places. This is a function of the goverment, and is either non-partisan or bipartisan. In order that all and only those members of a political party may vote in that party’s primary, one declares one’s party membership when registering to vote – or may register as an Independent, belonging to no party, if one so chooses.
Some states do provide means of “voting the straight party line” – in North Carolina, for example, there is a box on the ballot which may be checked that indicates you are casting a vote for all Democratic candidates or for all Republican candidates. But in general, one casts individual and secret votes for each office to be filled on a single ballot.
As a registered Democrat, I’ll have a choice in whom my party runs for Governor and for Senator in 2004 by voting in the Democratic primary. I will have no say in who the Republicans run. But if I find myself opposed to, say, the Democrat running for a given state office, I would have no qualms about voting for the Republican or the Libertarian in the general election, and be perfectly entitled to do so.
(New York has a plethora of third parties, some of which regularly elect candidates. North Carolina, with stricter rules on ballot access, has only three parties for state and Congressional offices, though third party Presidential candidates can get on the ballot.)
Washington State has a blanket primary and has since the mid-1930s.
here is the [url = “http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/blanket_primary.aspx”]web page from the Washington Secretary of State on the issue.
Indeed. One of them is the highly confusing Independence Party, which is an actual party, as opposed to an Independent, which is a person who runs for office as a member of no party.
In California, some parties let independents vote in their primaries (Reps, Dems, American Indepent and Natural Law) and others don’t (Reform, Libertarian, and Green).
The Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters called it “The Slightly Ajar Primary”.
The idea is that choosing the best candidate for public office is more important than the authority of political parties. And that with all primaries being open, malicious votes will tend to cancel each other out.
Just to clarify: Although you don’t need to register with a party first to vote in that party’s primary in Texas, once you vote in a primary you are ineligible to vote in the other. So on [primary] election day morning, you decide to vote in the Democrat Party primary–when you show up to vote, they’ll stamp your voter registration card with a “D”, which will prevent you from voting in the Republican Party primary. So it’s “open” in the sense that you can chose (or not chose) your party at the last minute, but once you do so you are ineligible to vote in the other party’s primary or in any run-off vote associated with that primary.
The stated reason here in Alaska is exactly as I described, with the secondary reason being that the party should be able to choose their own candidate, which is kind of like saying the same thing twice, since the second implies the first.
The effect of open primaries is to further homogenize the two major political parties. Crossover votes tend to force the eventual nominees toward the center; it’s no wonder we end up with Democrats that resemble Republicans and visa versa. Mark me down as one who prefers closed primary elections; political parties should stand for something.
There is one strange thing about voting a straight party ticket in NC - it does not include a vote for president. You have to vote separately for president if you vote straight party. (this is only during presidential election years)
This was done because the Democrats who control the general assembly saw that in recent years NC kept voting for Republicans for president but they were still mostly voting for Democrats for other offices. They basically were afraid that people would start voting straight party Republican. I don’t know if any other state has done something similar.