Officials.

You know, how like when everyone knows there's going to be a game, before there's a game.

to think about a presidential primary.

It's a bit perverse to have a deadline for changing affiliation with a party months before the beginning of the primary season.


Moreover, my personal opinion is when taxpayer money and administration is used to make a primary happen, the primary should be open. When all parties run a public primary on the same day, it sort of reduces the problem of people voting in more than one primary. In WI we get primary ballots with all the partyies candidates listed, a voter must declare which partie's column they are working and not make marks outside that.

Seems to me that if a state political party wants to run closed club meetings where voter preference is established they can administer those things themselves either as a caucus or a primary, but absent of public taxdollars or public administrative structures. In private, it can be their club rules, mostly whatever they want them to be.

It may not explain all the errors, but apparently, anyone who voted by affidavit ballot after hurricane sandy (e.g., people who were stranded away from regular polling place) had their party affiliation stripped.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511772737

accordance with all the registration and voting procedures which are all spelled out in advance. millions of people seem to be able to figure out except for bernie supporters

Caucuses have a way of excluding many working people, people with families, and most importantly the average American who may not be as invested in politics as many of us are. For many people, caucuses are intimidating, too social, too time consuming, and too complicated. They are designed to exclude the average voter, and thus appeal mostly to those who are heavily politically involved, which is really not how democracy works.

But, each candidate will use the vehicles that benefit him or her most. It's not fair, but it's the way it worked. Bernie benefited from the caucus model; Hillary benefited from the closed primaries model. So, in the end, it more or less averages out. Bernie's success has overall reflected his position in the polls as time went on. That Hillary leads by 200 delegates is a reflection of the national polls. That the race is getting close is a reflection of the national polls. So, overall the system, even with its flaws, works.

Voter ID, of course, is a different beast, because it's specifically designed to exclude Democrats.

Do we operate under American Law (presumption of innocence) or Napoleonic?

The Democratic Party candidate should be elected by Democrats.

who can't spend hours debating his or her vote on a given night. You serving in Iraq, no vote for you. You in the hospital, no vote for you. You have a young child, pay for a baby sitter or not vote for you.

...that instead of caucuses, we should have open primaries similar to our US Senate primaries:

- No party registration. Everyone gets the same ballot. There is a box with Republican candidates and a box with Democratic candidates. People can vote in either box but not both.

that the their party registration shown in our records is wrong. I know of cases in which those ballots were counted after correcting BOE mistakes.

I like closed primaries (even if my candidate inexplicably, IMHO, not doing particularly well in them), since I think Democrats should choose Democratic candidates, but the deadline for verifying and/or changing party identity should not be 6 months ahead of the election. Perhaps 2 weeks or 1 month or whatever is the minimum time needed for a BOE to update and distribute lists for a primary election would be a better deadline.

...it's when it's paired with a ridiculous deadline for switching that it's no good.

Or even better, a problem and not a problem.

Could someone explain why independents, or a different party's members should be able to choose a parties' candidate?

...but should be encouraged to vote.

A young liberal who wants to vote in a Democratic primary but doesn't think "I'm a Democrat" isn't an outsider.

22 states have no party registration, and it makes voting simpler.

In the AZ Primary, the party-registration data was messed up, and people who had been Registered Democrats or Registered Republicans for years were told they couldn't vote because they were listed as Independents. Data-errors should be fixable on Election Day, but when advanced party registration is required, that's an error which can't be fixed on Election Day.

not being in a political party and then wanting to pick their candidate is another.

Closed Primaries are not that. There are arguments either way about which is better. Open allows more people to participate, but there's also the argument that members of a party should get to choose who that party nominates.

What's happening during this primary is that open is better for Bernie and closed is better for Hillary, and supporters of each are arguing for the system that favors their candidate.