I hate the idea of open primaries. Parties should get to pick their own candidates.

I live in Ohio and I know we don’t. Honestly, I thought that’s how all states were till I got older and learned about party registration.

"the following 20 states (mostly in the South and the Midwest) do not provide for party preferences in voter registration: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states#Elections_and_voter_registrations

You have to declare that you are a Democrat. There is supposedly a penalty for voting in bad faith, though a few years back when I questioned the elections department about it, they admitted there was no attempt to enforce it.

Just having people declare a party goes some part of the way.

Years ago you had to register as a Republican or Democrat and you were limited to voting for that party’s candidates for the primaries? When did that change?

Democratic primary

The republicans on the other hand require that you are registered as a Republican to vote in the republican primary

California also makes it very easy to change your registration to no party preference

While I took advantage of that once and crossed over to republican to try and block former governor Rauner, on the whole I think primary voters should have to prove they were registered in their parties for a while before the primary. Maybe even have been registered the previous election cycle.

The 7 stages of grief

Shock and denial. This is a state of disbelief and numbed feelings.
Pain and guilt. ...
Anger and bargaining. ...
Depression. ...
The upward turn. ...
Reconstruction and working through. ...
Acceptance and hope.

delegates to take the nomination on the first vote, and believe if that is the case it will get very ugly with a lot of fighting and division

I hope I am wrong

Then we can thank Bloomberg for being a spoiler.

K&R.....

And I'll add Fuck Caucuses!

Individual primaries with small states should be eliminated and replaced with several large groups of states primarying on the same day. Ideally all states should have their primaries on the same day.

if he was an independent. You want to pick the party's nominee you have to join the party.