US Election: To NY and Beyond

[Altherion]

3 hours ago, lokisnow said:

nope, you're confusing general election ballots with primary ballot deadlines. gen election ballot deadlines are over the summer.

Not all of them. There's a list here. For example, Texas is on May 9th and North Carolina is on June 9th -- and these are not deadlines for sending in a single document, this is the point by which a candidate would need tens of thousands of signatures from that state. This is how we know that Bloomberg and the like aren't running (unless they somehow convince a party already on the ballot to accept them): if you haven't declared yet, you'll never get the signatures in time.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Why should you get to vote for who the democrats choose if you don't want to be affiliated with democrats and feel like shit for being registered as one? Again, this is a group that you openly loathe and don't want any part of - why would they want your vote? 

Do you feel like you should be able to vote in PTA meetings if you don't have kids there?Maybe you should get to vote on the board of directors for Apple even though you don't own any voting stock. because you really like Apple products?

Who pays for the Democratic New York Primary the Democratic Party or the State of New York?  If the latter I believe the primary should be open. After all everyone in New York is paying for it why shouldn't everyone be allowed to participate in the effort to suggest who the Democratic party should nominate for President?

Same for the Republican primary if it is paid for by the State.

 

[Altherion]

All primary elections are paid for by the state. According to this Washington Post article, this is in fact one of the main reasons that parties use primaries rather than caucuses (nobody wants to pay). On the other hand, this also means that it's the state which decides whether the primary is open or closed -- if the party wants a different configuration, it needs to hold a caucus.

[Fez]

48 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who pays for the Democratic New York Primary the Democratic Party or the State of New York?  If the latter I believe the primary should be open. After all everyone in New York is paying for it why shouldn't everyone be allowed to participate in the effort to suggest who the Democratic party should nominate for President?

Same for the Republican primary if it is paid for by the State.

 

Because political parties have the right to decide in their own manner who they nominate? They are, after all, private organizations. New York, and many other states, do pay for the primaries, but they do so because they consider it in the public interest to make candidate selections as democratic as possible. There are literally hundreds of thousands, probably millions actually, of things that taxpayers pay for that they don't receive a direct benefit from, but that the government has decided it is in the best interest of the county/state/country to pay for; why should primaries be any different? 

And just like any other government expense, if people don't like it they should run for office on a platform of cutting that spending. I rather think though that changing primary registration rules is not a winning issue however.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Fez,

If parties want closed primaries they should pay for them.  It's really straightforward in my opinion.  We aren't talking about specific benefits but an election paid for by the State, as you say, for the benefit of the people.  All the people should be able to participate in a State wide election.

[SkynJay]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Well, this sucks for New York voters. Basically a whole bunch of people who thought that they didn't need to register as Democrat back in October and now hate that sooooo much are going to make the volunteers' lives hell because reasons. 

Dude, you've been there for 10 years and apparently never once voted in a primary. Sorry you didn't know about the deadline, but it's been this way for something like 50 years now. You could probably have figured it out any time before now if you had at all cared.

And on a side note, this is something that future Sandersesque politicians will keep track of -  that if they want to make a play, they'll need to get out the registration of people early. 

Except, ya know, you kind of should have to join a party to vote for said party, right? It doesn't make a lot of sense to be affiliated with no party but think that you should have a say in who should win it. You get your vote in the general election. This isn't March Madness. 

ETA: DailyKos has some more snark on this.

 

I don't have a problem with this per se but Kos ought to be careful with their arguments here.  Because when the next line of voter ID laws comes around much of that same snark will come back around.  "If you had really wanted to vote you could have x, y, and z months ago to be ready."

[Shryke]

14 minutes ago, SkynJay said:

I don't have a problem with this per se but Kos ought to be careful with their arguments here.  Because when the next line of voter ID laws comes around much of that same snark will come back around.  "If you had really wanted to vote you could have x, y, and z months ago to be ready."

Except it's a closed primary for a political party, not an election.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Except it's a closed primary for a political party, not an election.

Shryke,

Paid for by the people who are denied the opportunity to participate. That's not proper in my opinion.  If the parties want closed primaries they should pay for them.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Except it's a closed primary for a political party, not an election.

Philosophically what's the difference? You look like a hypocrite if you deride voter suppression in one situation and celebrate it in another.

[lokisnow]

22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Shryke,

Paid for by the people who are denied the opportunity to participate. That's not proper in my opinion.  If the parties want closed primaries they should pay for them.

Of course if the party has to pay for it that makes it that much harder for third parties to participate

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Fez,

If parties want closed primaries they should pay for them.  It's really straightforward in my opinion.  We aren't talking about specific benefits but an election paid for by the State, as you say, for the benefit of the people.  All the people should be able to participate in a State wide election.

You also aren't allowed to just attend a publicly-funded university, even though your tax dollars are paying for its operations. You still have to meet requirements that are determined by the university.

Political parties are no different.

[Altherion]

25 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Paid for by the people who are denied the opportunity to participate. That's not proper in my opinion.  If the parties want closed primaries they should pay for them.

It's not the party's choice though. If the state pays for the primary, the state sets the rules (though they may allow the party to choose). It might be that in the wake of the mysterious affiliation switching afflicting at least Arizona and apparently also New York, more states will decide to make primaries open.

[Fragile Bird]

I'm puzzled by the line of thinking here.  The primaries aren't closed, you can vote in them if you register.  Same argument made by Fez.  You can't attend university unless you register.  The argument is specious.  You can't send your kid to a lot of free programs run by the state unless you register.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 minutes ago, Fez said:

You also aren't allowed to just attend a publicly-funded university, even though your tax dollars are paying for its operations. You still have to meet requirements that are determined by the university.

Political parties are no different.

Fez,

Completely different circumstances.  The pupose of the State paying is to encourage participation.  Why then place restrictions on participation?  

Universities are not "public schools" like K-12 they are not fully funded by the State and universal attendance isn't contemplated with such funding.  Different.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I'm puzzled by the line of thinking here.  The primaries aren't closed, you can vote in them if you register.  Same argument made by Fez.  You can't attend university unless you register.  The argument is specious.  You can't send your kid to a lot of free programs run by the state unless you register.

FB,

That's the argument made in favor of voter ID laws as well.  Which are frequently opposed here, hence the question about the dichotomy in rational offered.

[Shryke]

30 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Philosophically what's the difference? You look like a hypocrite if you deride voter suppression in one situation and celebrate it in another.

The difference is a political party is not a political office. Exactly what that piece from Kos was talking about. It's a private organization. The franchise does not extend to participation in private organizations for what should be obvious reasons.

Not being able to vote on the next book your neighbour's book club reads is not voter suppression.

This doesn't change just because your taxes might be funding it, as Fez's public university example illustrates. "My tax dollars pay for this school!" does not give you a vote in student elections if you aren't a student.

[Fragile Bird]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

FB,

That's the argument made in favor of voter ID laws as well.  Which are frequently opposed here, hence the question about the dichotomy in rational offered.

They aren't the same things though.  A general election should be open to all citizens to vote in, since the purpose is to elect your government in a democracy.  A primary is not a general election, it's a method to choose a candidate for one position.  How are candidates chosen for every other candidate in this fall's election?  Are all those votes open votes?

[Shryke]

21 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's not the party's choice though. If the state pays for the primary, the state sets the rules (though they may allow the party to choose). It might be that in the wake of the mysterious affiliation switching afflicting at least Arizona and apparently also New York, more states will decide to make primaries open.

Except there doesn't actually seem to be alot of support right now for anything going on in New York.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/04/18/3770355/new-york-voting-open-primary-lawsuit/

Quote

In comments to ThinkProgress, New York state Board of Elections spokesperson Thomas Connolly confirmed that he had been receiving regular complaints about allegedly manipulated voter registrations — specifically complaints that party affiliations had been purged.
But Connolly also said that each complaint he’s followed up on has been due to a mistake on the voter’s part.
“I’ve yet to come across [a voter registration] that’s been maliciously changed,” he said. “There’s always been a legitimate reason.”
The allegations of willful voter registration manipulations in New York are coming most loudly from Sanders supporters. Allegations of fraud have been widespread on the Sanders for President Reddit page, where voters have been posting personal stories of sketchy dealings with their local board of elections.

It mostly seems like people pissed off they fucked up paperwork or missed deadlines or the like. At least at this point.

 

Arizona, on the other hand, is getting it's ass sued by the Clinton campaign, the Sanders campaign and the DNC last I read.

[Fez]

10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Fez,

Completely different circumstances.  The pupose of the State paying is to encourage participation.  Why then place restrictions on participation?  

Universities are not "public schools" like K-12 they are not fully funded by the State and universal attendance isn't contemplated with such funding.  Different.

Universal attendance/voting is also not contemplated with state-paid primaries, at least not in all states. Again, I don't see the difference. (Also, what happened to your belief in states rights? If a state doesn't want to force a political party to have an open primary; why do you want to force the state to force the party?)

Also, with K-12 you still have to register in the sense that you generally have to be a resident of the school district. It can be very difficult, and in many cases impossible, to have a child attend school in a district other than the one they live in. And even if they can, there's still paperwork that needs to be completed. A lot more paperwork than it takes to register with a political party.

And there's no sense getting into a long digression about education; it was just the first example that popped in my head. There's tons of programs you pay for that you don't get to access. The absolute most obvious being that you don't get the nuclear launch codes even though your tax dollars are paying for missile maintenance. Primaries are better than most, in that you do get to access them, if you complete the paperwork.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Fez,

Why offer the rational of encouraging participation and then restrict participation.  It's a contradiction.  The State's absolutely have the power to set such restrictions it doesn't mean I have to agree with the rational offered.  This doesn't make sense in my opinion.