I am considering changing my party affiliation to R before 2026 primaries (in a closed primary state). Just to fuck with all the Congress and down ballot races..
Talk me out of it?
@singlemaltgirl @Vanitas it’s just for primaries, where — think of it as a poll of how popular any of the candidates within a certain party are, and therefore who gets declared as ‘their’ candidate
@singlemaltgirl @Kinniska @Vanitas In Tennessee you must pick a party when voting in the primaries and it's on the sign up sheet. Republicans got mad at their Republican only primaries one year because some D's voted...one was me and I'll do it again. Judges were on that ballot.
@Ruthat @singlemaltgirl @Vanitas hahahaha that’s hilarious.
I’m not registered with either party in my commonwealth, (used to be called ‘Independent’ until Perot coöpted that name) so we get to choose or switch an affiliation on the primary day; you can only choose ONE ballot for the day, but it means that yes, a D or a U (me, unregistered) can vote on an R primary if we want to
In closed primaries, you only get to vote for the candidates of the party you affiliate with. Independent voters basically have zero say except in non-partisan races (school board, judges). Everyone gets the same ballot in the General election a few weeks or months later.
@Vanitas 🤔
thx for explaining.
@Vanitas I mean. What’s the goal, to bring down the numbers of favorites / bring up the numbers of can’t win ?
Basically yes. To run up numbers for bad Rep candidates so in the General election the Dem has better chances (and I'd likely vote Dem there despite the R party registration).
@Vanitas Just my opinions, feel free to disregard.
If you switch from D to R, it looks like momentum for the R side. It will be used to say 'look at all of these people that knew we were doing the right thing and switched to R'.
It won't let you vote in the D primaries, and there might be a candidate that you wish to choose over another and that would kind of deprive you of that choice.
Those are really the only two arguments I can come up with. If you were Ind, it kinda won't hurt anything?
@sirgeefive @Vanitas I would agree, but it depends on your area, mostly for us, the Dems all rep the same platform and issues, so that candidate doesn't matter, but we can flip that every primary election.
@Vanitas I've been doing that for years.
@Vanitas
Oh believe me, I’m thinking of it too lol
@Vanitas I vote in the republicon primaries where I live, just to fuck with and maybe moderate what we are subjected to. So, there's nothing wrong with the games manship with that.
@Vanitas i'm in NH, as an undeclared voter. that means i can choose either a Dem or a GOP primary ballot, vote & immediately change back to undeclared at the polling place. i fairly often vote R in primaries to keep the worst nuts out
@Vanitas Depends on if your state is heavily R or D, I suppose. If it's heavily R, and the D's have no chance of prevailing in the general election, then you should register R to influence for a more moderate candidate and you should encourage others to do the same.
@Vanitas why do you have to have a party affiliation when you vote? i thought how you vote is supposed to be secret, no?