In a state where you can’t register by party, it’s hard to do party stuff. Plus, we are pretty conservative still, so our state runs pretty well, which tends to make people complacent. Like 6 of our 8 county supervisors are republican, and a few are pretty good conservatives.
“In a state where you can’t register by party, it’s hard to do party stuff.”
Here’s how you do it, without requiring people to register by party at voter registration time.
Require voters who wish to vote in a primary election to vote in the primary of only one party, with primary day for all parties being held on the same date. Stamp the voters’ voter ID card with the name of the party they voted in at the polls. That way, they are identified at that time with party affiliation and can only vote in the reunoff of the party whose primary they voted in. Hold the precinct convention 30 minutes after polls close at the building where voting took place (or very nearby) and the crossover voters, if they attend at all, are easily identifiable, will be outvoted, and the liberals will vote for liberal democrats in their precinct to attend their county convention and the conservatives will elect conservatives to represent them at their Republican (or Libertarian Party, or Constitution Party) conventions.
It’s easy to do party stuff in that system.