Who in their right minds would even think you had to take action 8 months before the Primary in order to change Party when a NEW voter only has to register 2 months before ?
I certainly wouldn’t, and I have been voting in every election for 34 years. And I seriously doubt that there were people standing outside supermarkets in August and September reminding people of the early deadline for Party changes like they do for NEW VOTER registrations. “Are you registered to vote ?” “Yep.” “Great !” I have NEVER heard them ask if I wanted to change Party affiliation or remind me that I would need to because CA is a Closed Primary. Never in 34 years of elections.
NY has taken this tack to prevent Operation Chaos. By making it so early, voters cannot be sure their vote won’t be needed within their own party, so they won’t risk getting trapped and prevented from voting for their real preference.
All we can conclude from this is that Ivanka never needed to change her Party registry before because the real elections in November is all she cared about. She is hardly the only 33 year old that doesn’t pay attention to politics. Being registered “Independent” doesn’t restrict you for the real elections.
Apples to oranges. A new voter might be someone who has just turned 18 or had never been registered to vote before or someone who had recently moved to the state. In the case of someone newly eligible to vote because they just turned 18 or someone who had recently moved to the state, the later deadline makes sense. I do agree however that the deadline for changing party affiliation in NY seems way too long in advance of the election. Perhaps the voters of NY should take that up with their legislators.
I certainly wouldn’t, and I have been voting in every election for 34 years. And I seriously doubt that there were people standing outside supermarkets in August and September reminding people of the early deadline for Party changes like they do for NEW VOTER registrations. “Are you registered to vote ?” “Yep.” “Great !” I have NEVER heard them ask if I wanted to change Party affiliation or remind me that I would need to because CA is a Closed Primary. Never in 34 years of elections.
California is a mixed bag in this respect.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/frequently-asked-questions/
How are primary elections conducted in California?
How are presidential primary elections conducted in California?
Qualified political parties in California may hold presidential primaries in one of two ways:
Closed presidential primary - only voters indicating a preference for a party may vote for that party's presidential nominee.
Modified-closed presidential primary - the party also allows voters who did not state a party preference to vote for that party's presidential nominee.
If a qualified political party chooses to hold a modified-closed presidential primary, the party must notify the California Secretary of State no later than the 135th day before Election Day.
The GOP in CA opted to hold closed presidential primaries while the Dem’s opted for a modified-closed presidential primary. However, if you are not registered as a Republican and miss the deadline for changing to one, you can’t vote in the CA Republican Primary or if you are not registered as a Democrat or unaffiliated with any party, i.e. not registered as a Libertarian or Green Party for example, and miss the deadline for changing to either Dem or to unaffiliated, you can’t vote in the CA Democratic Primary.
NY has taken this tack to prevent Operation Chaos. By making it so early, voters cannot be sure their vote won’t be needed within their own party, so they won’t risk getting trapped and prevented from voting for their real preference.
I am not sure where you are going with that but I “think” we agree. As to “Operation Chaos”, yes I think the state political party has an interest in making sure that the voters in a closed primary system are truly aligned with that party and not changing party affiliation just to screw with the process.
I lived in Maryland for many years and a friend of mine (no longer a friend BTW because after a time, I could no longer stand her bat guano craziness and eventually her personal nastiness) was a rabid liberal/socialist/feminist Democrat but she was registered in Maryland as a Republican. Why? Because as she told me one day: “I want to vote in the Republican primary for the absolute worst Republican candidate - local, or state or nationally, the ones with the worst chance of getting elected in the general election”. She of course voted straight Democrat in the general election.
She and I both worked different voter registration tables at the Fells Point Festival in 1992 – me for the Baltimore GOP (yes there were a few of us) and she at some sort of liberal/socialist/feminist org. table. She was actually encouraging and telling people to register as Republicans so they could “F- Them Over” in their primary elections.
For a time I was registered as an independent in Maryland (it was in 96 when I was so disappointed with Dole being the favored GOP candidate and knew he was going to get creamed by Bill Clinton anyway – I voted for Harry Browne in the general that year in protest), but I also knew that prevented me from voting in the primary so I changed back to Republican before the next election.
All we can conclude from this is that Ivanka never needed to change her Party registry before because the real elections in November is all she cared about. She is hardly the only 33 year old that doesn’t pay attention to politics. Being registered “Independent” doesn’t restrict you for the real elections.
Again, I’m not sure what you are saying here. If she was long registered as an independent in NY, she would have or should have known that NY has a closed primary system and was therefore not eligible to vote in the primaries. If all she cared about was voting in the “real elections” that tells me that she left it up to party affiliated voters to choose who was ultimately running in the general. That tells me she did not only did not pay attention to politics before her father decided to run, but that she was also not very interested in the process. Being 33 years old is not an excuse.
FWIW – she’s donated more money to Democrats than to Republicans over the years, even recently.
Sort of makes one wonder who she was actually voting for in the “real elections” and if she ever bothered voting at all.