[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by vienna

The purpose of registering is mainly to help ensure a person does not vote more than once in a given election; names, addresses, etc. are compared to detect duplicate registrations.

Close, but not quite correct. The main purpose of registering is to help ensure that people who actually vote do so along party lines. The only reason we have our voter and party guidelines we have is to shut out competition from third parties. Don't take my word for it, try to start a party yourself. I'll hold my breath while you gather the requisite 40,000 signatories, and that's in Texas where the guidelines are comparatively lax.

When it comes to persons themselves, the parties could care less about who votes or how many times. The Democratic party has no compunction about getting dead people to vote or bribing illiterates to vote, and the Republican party has no compunction about redistricting votes in their favor. Actually, neither party has a stance against that, but the Reps are better at it.

Registering as a member of a party is really mostly governed by localities (states, counties). In order to select a candidate to represent a particular party for a particular office, primary elections are held where the voters in each party vote from a selction of candidates within the party and the candidate garnering the most votes goes on to represent the party in the main General Election. Therefore, only the voters officially registered in the party can vote from the party's list of candidates. Not all localities have primaries in this manner; some localities have "open" primaries where a voter can vote for a candidate across party lines.

That's what they'd like you to think. The truth is... well, what you just said. It's just a mechanism for polarizing the vote along party lines. Nothing more, nothing less. You won't find open primaries in any district that matters, nor will you find third-party candidates on their ballots. It's an extortion racket, albeit a cleverly concealed one.

Here in California we do not have open primaries.

Most states don't. The idea is supposedly to prevent subversives from voting against a viable candidate, but the real reason is to separate voters and side-line third parties and independent candidates. Don't take my word for it, just fill out a false voter registration form. Nobody is going to do a background check. You can vote two or three times if you like, maybe more, as long as you register in different counties.

Both parties are quite fond of the two-party system, and they are keen to keep it as such, hence the system we have now.


That's my interpretation, anyways. Maybe I'm right and maybe I'm wrong, but it can't hurt to be mindful of the nature of the system and the results it has given us.