And would rather have votes suppressed by a purity test and/or willingness to sign a form?

Democrats should be doing it.

BTW this is "democratic underground'" you may have noticed.

The plurality of the country are independents.

The time of the "political parties" are over, as evidenced by the drop in membership and the rise of independents.

As Chuck Schumer said so eloquently in 2014, it is time for ALL primaries to be open primaries.

Right now you end up with the two worst candidates because they are chosen by party insiders.

Look.. its might be Trump vs Clinton and we will end up with President Trump for 4 years.

That's what a closed primary gets you.

But requiring them to do it 6 months in advance is ridiculous.

That's not a closed primary.

That's just dumb.

You know how CNN has a TIMER counting down to a debate?
Local News channels should do the same for registration dates and primaries

and you pay for them. I am fine with that. And I mean fully. YOU DO NOT GET TO RENT any gear from the state.

Private function, you pay for it. (We will see caucuses so fast it is not even funny, everywhere, and I am fine with that too)

Of course a better process would be no primaries and instant runoff voting for everyone, and public financing of elections.

Im for that but its not the system we have.

you pay for it.

I, as a citizen do not want to pay for any of your private party function. Yes, the states recognize this, but nowhere does it state I need to give a gift to your party. Understood. You pay for it. And just becuase "it is tradition" means butkis. Sooner or later your party (and the Rs by the way) will get sued. You get to do your primary, on your own time, with your own money.

If a voter doesn't know the rules of their state it's on them. It's not some hidden secret somewhere.

Pretty simple.

That's the main reason I don't like it one bit.

But I have no objection to Republicans changing to Democrats up to election day. I have not heard of a single actual instance of the feared "Republican interference" the restrictions claim to be preventing. It sort of reminds me of all the discriminatory measures Republicans advocate to stop a "voter fraud" problem that doesn't exist.

I'd much rather take the risk of interference in order to have the benefit of growing the party. It just makes not sense to lock out and alienate people who want to join the party.

If you want to strengthen and grow the party, you don't slam the door in the faces of those who want to come in.

And if you want to vote in the Dem primary in a closed state then become a Dem.

all while shrieking and carrying on that it's the voters' fault

they WANT the party closed and shrunken, since anything else would threaten the gravy train

they've kicked out everyone who didn't gargle when the piss in our mouths, and now the dentist is in town and they're trying to keep him out of their little pee party