Reading (For Dummies): Elections

December 10, 2003

Elections

Starting to hear news about primaries kind of ticks me off. I registered with the Green Party up here in CNY and can't vote on the Democrat primary. Why can't parties be affiliated? IE Green is a subset of the Democratic party, so registered Greenies and vote on the Demo primary? Same thing could go for the conservative end of the spectrum.

I can't see how this would hurt. People still can't vote in a primary for a party that they're not interested (or if they do, they'll lose the chance to vote in the primary for the party they want, still). This could really help out the minority parties.

Posted by reid at December 10, 2003 12:57 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Well, a million things, but here's one: Lots of people (green or not) would raise bloody murder if they were connected to the Democratic party in any way, as you propose. Also, there are from time to time, Green candidates (i.e. Ralph Nader). Affiliating the parties for the primaries seems a slippery slope to embark on.

Further, who's to say some Greens wouldn't rather be connected with the Republican Party? :)

Posted by: Dan on December 10, 2003 07:51 PM

Many states do in fact have open primaries, any registered voter can vote in any primary. You can only vote in one primary however. New York is closed, I'm not sure about New Jersey.

Posted by: Stephen on December 13, 2003 02:59 PM