It’s a common misconception, but if you registered “Independent Party” you aren’t “independent” you are a member of your state’s Independent party, who has a platform and agenda you may or may not agree with. What you actually want is called an “unaffiliated” voter status. The good news is, all you have to do is…nothing!
LA Times had a good summary a few years back: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-american-independent-party-california-registration-card-20180405-story.html
You don’t need to register with any party to show you don’t like R or D, do nothing or choose "unaffiliated if you want to be “little i independent”.
Examples:
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New York - http://ipny.org/platform.html
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Oregon - https://www.indparty.com/
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Illinois - https://www.iviipo.org/our-policies/economic-issues
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American Independent Party - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Independent_Party
#USA #politics----
In Texas you must register with a party to vote in their primary. Now that doesn’t mean you have to vote for them in the general election. Quite often I’ve registered Republican to try and influence the primary since I’ll vote for whichever Democrat makes it past the primary.
I’ve been considering changing my registration to Republican specifically for primaries. I’m in SD, and the Republican almost always wins so I feel I’d have more impact trying to push the right left and can still vote however I want in the general.
but what happens if you vote for someone and they end up winning?
I would be voting for the better GOP candidate in the primary hoping they win, and likely the Dem come general election, but since I’m in a red area I’d expect the Dem to lose but maybe help pick the lesser of two evils for the GOP?
i couldn’t do that.
If you lived somewhere where the GOP candidate is going to get 65 percent of the vote basically no matter what, and in the GOP primary you had an incumbent, somewhat average, right wing conservative that you’ve seen work across the aisle in the state legislator ruining against a hard core maga nut job, anti vaccine, anti public schools, openly racist etc. Do you think registering as a Republican to vote for the incumbent in that primary sounds like an okay idea? You can still vote for the Democrat and make your voice heard there at the general election even though it’s essentially guaranteed he loses.
Or is the argument against this that if the crazy maga guy wins the primary there’s a slightly better chance the Democrat can win? I’d call it unlikely where I’m at, but could see tighter districts working that way.
if i elect an average right wing conservative (which is redundant) and they go on to do bad things, which is practically guaranteed, I would not feel better.
That’s called a closed primary. Many states have open primaries but many are still closed
Texas doesn’t have party affiliation on your voter registration and we have open primaries.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2020-05.shtml
Don’t suppose you read your own link….
31. (§162.010). A voter who has affiliated themselves with a party is ineligible to participate in the party affairs of another party during the same calendar year. (§§162.012, 162.013)
Yes you can flip every year but you have to chose a party to vote in their primary. That’s what I said.
Similarly, North Carolina allows unaffiliated to choose their primary, but R and D must vote in their registered primaries. Definitely good to know your state’s laws before taking OP at face value!
I did this accidentally when first voting, found out after a few years and had the hardest time convincing the person at the DMV when updating my license when moving that I was not a member of any party. It is like trying to answer ‘none’ when someone asks for my favorite team/drink/food/music/whatever.
What does the dmv guy care about your affiliation
In my state you can renew your voter registration at the DMV in renewing or updating your license when your address changes.
I’m some states you can register to vote at the DMV when doing some other DMV things. Not sure why they’d give this person a hard time though.
But also you should generally just pick a primary to vote in. You are voting in primaries, right?
Some states have open primaries, you just vote in whatever one you want. Not every state requires registering with a party to vote in the primary.
Nope. I really dislike both parties that are going to win. It doesn’t matter who is the candidate for either party because at the national level my district will always go Republican anyway for representative, senators, and president.
I only vote to vote against Republicans and tell myself that maybe my vote mattered for some random local position. No interest in actually keeping up with the mediocre Democratic candidates, and trying to influence the Republican party is useless because my fellow idiots still keep absolutely obvious villains like Kobach back in power. Not worth getting harassed by fundraisers.
I don’t like Republicans either, but I still vote in the Republican primary. You have a duty to yourself and your country to vote.
If you don’t vote, you’re just allowing others to choose for you. How do you think that’s gonna go?
I do vote, just not in the primaries. My stste requires me to be a member of a party to vote in their primary.
There is no chance in hell that I will be a registered Republican to vote in their primary, and the Dems aren’t worth the effort here.
Odd that you highlight Illinois when Illinois does not record party affiliation when registering to vote.
Picked some random states, they’re all different which is also part of the confusion when citizens move. They may not record it for the state but can those in the state still register or join a party on their own? Issue would still exist if so.
Issue would not exist if so. Non-affiliated voters who aren’t tricked into it aren’t seeking out party registration.
People also just get confused by terminology and the mechanics and do it on accident, though much less common if state isn’t including it on voter reg for sure.
The genesis of this post was a family member in a very blue state, who went to an ivy league school and is extremely progressive and was sick of blue/red and googled “independent party” in her state and when I sent her the party platform she was registered for she lost her mind.
You mean people have to register under a particular political party? I’m a registered voter, and there’s no field for which party I’d be in support of.
I just looked at my registration card, sounds like a load of horse shit to me.
I’m in California and I’ve been NPA (No Party Affiliation) for almost my entire voting-age life. So NPA is an option… at least in some states.
I guess you missed my point as well.
My question was which states even ask political association in the first place?
Red ones.
I’m in Oregon and it’s on the voter registration form, not required, but a big drop down with party name and no other info. Oregon is hardly red.
I’m in a ‘red’ state. Wanna try again?
Exactly the same for me. Never saw any particular party as one worth affiliation with my voting choices though I do end up voting for Democrat backed choices most often.
It depends on the state. When I lived in Florida, there was a party on my id card. In Texas, there isn’t, though you can only vote in one party’s primary (including any runoffs) per election.
What ID card are you talking about?
The voter registration card. Here’s a sample from a few years ago in a different county, but the one I had twenty years ago was similar.
Interesting we have no such thing in MN. When you do a change of address at the post office, you can opt to have them register you to vote at your new address. I don’t even recall if I had to show ID when I voted the first time at my new precinct.
I don’t think I’ve ever had to show my registration card, but both states send them out. Since Voter ID passed in Texas, though, I have had to bring my Drivers License, which given the shitty way the state runs the DL offices is another bullshit voter suppression tactic.
Texas, no party listed, the last couple of cycles I’ve voted in the Republican primary to try to help a least worst candidate.
In many states, in order to vote in the primary elections of a party you have to be registered to that party.
I’m not American. Can someone explain this to me? Why would you register a party you are aligned with? I’m Ireland we use proportional representation so most people will be voting for multiple parties in order of how closely they align with your views.
Because they’re doing it by mistake. They’re intending to register to vote as independent (no party aligned) voters, seeing “Independent” under party, and choosing that.
Canadian here, we don’t do that either. Primaries is one of the many additional structural barriers to representive voting being adopted in the US and a step away from having more than two parties in their system. It also increases the campaign costs for candidates and exacerbates the issues with first past the post voting meaning running people becomes an exclusive exercise for the wealthy or people with wealthy patrons who make handshake agreements.
As I understand it, Instead of having parties internally figure out who they are running on the docket as party head like sane people they open it up to basically a second first past the post election of internal candidates. You register as a member of those parties when you register to vote to participate (or not) in the election before the actual election. Personally to one outside that system that just seems like an additional bundle of problems to deal with by doubling down an already outdated voting system that creates further issues of populism but some Americans are very fond of archaic systems. You know something something founders of our nation blah blah can’t change anything our fathers who art in 6ft of dirt didn’t personally come up with blah.
Forgive my glibness. Being a neighbour is hard sometimes.
To participate in the party’s election of a candidate. So you select a candidate within the party and then select the winner from the candidates each party selected.
Technically you don’t have to be affiliated to run for office. But once you’re talking about federal offices that route is functionally restricted to billionaires. And voters who are unaffiliated just don’t get the first round of voting. So it’s highly incentivized to affiliate.
This is not always true. Here in West Virginia unaffiliated voters like me used to be able to vote in either primary. Then the Republicans canned that option. So now when I vote in a primary I am asked if I would like the Democrat or unaffiliated ballot. All the choices from the unaffiliated ballot are on the Democrat ballot.
I was just giving a general run down. I could start in on jungle primaries and caucuses too
I’m Ireland we use proportional representation
America does not do that.
In America, the government doesn’t technically have the right to know where you live. You don’t automatically get to vote without registering because the government doesn’t necessarily know where you live. You have to give your address to get a driver’s license, so often that government office also does voter registration.
Before our elections, we have primaries. That’s where each party picks who the candidates are from that party, but they are a state-run event. Technically a party doesn’t need to do this, they could just submit their candidate to the final election. Every state does it a little differently, but in many states, you need to declare which party you are a part of in order to take part in the decision for who that party is sending to the election. In some states, it’s optional, and when you go to vote in a primary, you tell them which party you want to select the candidate for, and they give you that ballot. Other states are weird and do what’s called “caucusing”, where everyone from a particular party within that voting district meets up, and they try to come to a decision on which candidate to send forward. In those states, it’s not a blind vote, but you essentially get a sort of instant runoff, at least in my understanding.
It looks like in Ireland, since you have multiple parties, you have more options at your elections, so you don’t have to help the parties pick their candidates?
Pro tip: you can vote for whoever you want to in US elections, regardless of party registration—registering as a member of a political party in the US means literally nothing—save for getting sales calls, being combined with a meaningless cohort for reports on “polls” and being given the option to vote in some primaries.
So long as you are eligible to, and registered to vote in your municipality, you can exercise your civic duty to vote. Don’t let weird psy-op posts like this one imply you’re unable to make your voice heard.
