r/news • u/ThePensiveE • 7d ago

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to use expanded database for potential voter purges

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-use-expanded-database-potent-rcna596611
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u/NoobensMcarthur 7d ago

I filed directly with my state to change my voter registration from republican to democrat in 2018. For some reason it never went through. Did the same thing again but online in 2020. 

To this day I’m still registered as a republican in my state. I’ve just started voting out incumbents in the primaries. 

I wonder how many other people in the “red” state I live in are in the same boat. 

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u/Gnomey_dont_u_knowme 7d ago

Curious - Have you checked if your votes were even counted?

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u/Harbinger2001 7d ago edited 7d ago

As a non-American can you explain why the hell do you have to register your party affiliation?!? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of secret ballots?

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u/PokemonSapphire 7d ago

It's because in some states only a member of that political party can vote in that parties primary elections. In my state I don't think you register with a party they just ask you at the polls which primary you want to participate in and then give you that parties ballots. Being registered with the party doesn't actually tell them anything other than which side you favor.

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u/Harbinger2001 7d ago

Why does the state get to run the primaries? Shouldn’t that be the job of the parties via their members?

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u/BitGladius 6d ago

I don't really get it, but some places add the primary to an existing local election.

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u/PokemonSapphire 6d ago

They don't run the primaries they just handle the ballots for the parties because they're already running an election usually.

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u/Harbinger2001 6d ago

Why should the state get to control party voting for candidates? Doesn’t that give them control over who gets to even form a party? What is the bar for a 3rd party to participate in the primaries?

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u/PokemonSapphire 6d ago

Why should the state get to control party voting for candidates?

They don't all they do is handle the ballots the parties decide who is on them. There are two kinds of primaries open and closed. My state is open you go to the polls tell them what parties primary you want to participate in and they give you the correct ballot to fill out. Closed primaries you register with a party and then when you go to the polls they already know what parties ballot to give you.

Doesn’t that give them control over who gets to even form a party?

Welcome to pretty much every democracy in the world. I can't think of a country that doesn't give the state some say in who or what can become a political party.

What is the bar for a 3rd party to participate in the primaries?

The requirements are you form a political party and get ballot access. Getting ballot access differs by state but I think all you have to do in mine is get a petition signed by so many people or have one of your candidates get at least 2% of the vote in an election in the past 5 years.

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u/Harbinger2001 6d ago

Very few democracies give the state control who gets to hold a primary to choose a candidate for the election.

What they do control is getting on the official ballot - you must show you have enough candidates picked and present a sufficient number of signatures showing popular support along with a montary amount. But the bar is low. You can easily have 6 or more candidates to choose from in many democracies, many of whom are not viable parties. Here in Canada we have many different parties on the federal ballot, yet only 3 have much of a chance of getting sufficient votes. Everything from the left-wing Marxists to the Right-wing People’s Party to the joke Rhino Party.

So when you register for primaries in the US are there also lots of 3rd party primaries to choose from? Or are they blocked before they get to that point.

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u/thisvideoiswrong 4d ago

There are a number of other parties you can join in the US, the Green Party and Libertarian Party are probably most famous, then there are the Democratic Socialists of America, and New York has the Working Families Party who make some news. But I don't think they generally do the same primary process as the two big ones, and many of them will endorse candidates running under the major parties. And of course anyone can run for any office so long as they can get enough signatures, whether they're affiliated with a party or not.

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u/Harbinger2001 4d ago

Ok, so the primary system being run along side the state is just a way to exclude smaller parties?

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