Registered independents have no business voting in the New York democratic primary

http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/registered-independents-have-no-business-voting-in-the-new-york-democratic-primary/24530/


There has been a lot of attention paid lately to the voting laws in New York. The state holds what are known as “closed” primaries. This means that you have to have identified yourself as a specific member of a party to vote in their primary. New York’s deadline for registering to vote in this primary or changing your party affiliation was last October. This doesn’t work well for the Sanders supporters, many of whom identify as independents. They have claimed the process is “rigged”, when in fact it is they who are trying to rig the process. While some states allow same day registration or allow independents to choose a ballot from either party, New York doesn’t, nor should they.

The purpose of a primary election is for party members to choose who they want to represent their party in the general election. If you are not a democrat or a republican, you should not be voting in the primary. You should absolutely vote in the general election – that’s when your voice is to be heard. But to cross parties or show up in a primary to sway the nomination process for a party that you do not want to be identified with is actually rigging the process.

It happens every cycle, in every open primary or caucus state for a variety of reasons. Some independent voters truly do not identify with a particular party, yet there may be a candidate in a specific race that they support and believe in more than any other. That is fine but, again, the primary is not for you unless you are willing to stand up and say “I’m a democrat or republican”.

In some years, when one candidate is running unopposed within his own party (like President Obama in 2008 or President Bush in 2004), you may have a democrat or republican who chooses to participate in the other party’s primary for any number of reasons. They want to ensure a quality candidate is chosen (just in case the other party were to actually win), or they may actually want to try to skew the results and torpedo a strong candidate from the other side. Neither are really acceptable reasons. If you don’t identify with that party, and you have no intention of voting for that candidate in the general election you should not be voting for them in the primary.

Go Hillary today will be your day......