In many (most? all?) states, you only get to vote in the primary for your registered party, while independent gets a selection. This is likely intended to avoid a spoiler vote, where a democrat might vote in the republican party for the most abhorrent choice – though I think this is the kind of thing that can backfire and get us a Trump presidency.
It’s so weird to give that information to a government. Here if people want to vote for internal party elections, they become party members. You register directly with the party and it is entirely independent from the general elections.
Parties have their own elections, members of that party vote for their leader. Then we have general elections where everyone can chose between those parties.
The government has statistics about the number of members for each party, but not who. Knowing what voter is a member of what party would probably break some privacy laws. A vote is supposed to be anonymous.
Why is there a party affiliation at registering?
Primaries.
In many (most? all?) states, you only get to vote in the primary for your registered party, while independent gets a selection. This is likely intended to avoid a spoiler vote, where a democrat might vote in the republican party for the most abhorrent choice – though I think this is the kind of thing that can backfire and get us a Trump presidency.
It’s so weird to give that information to a government. Here if people want to vote for internal party elections, they become party members. You register directly with the party and it is entirely independent from the general elections.
Parties have their own elections, members of that party vote for their leader. Then we have general elections where everyone can chose between those parties.
The government has statistics about the number of members for each party, but not who. Knowing what voter is a member of what party would probably break some privacy laws. A vote is supposed to be anonymous.