the polling place on voting day and vote in whichever primary they choose.
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Posted on 09/07/2018 8:50:40 AM PDT by Hojczyk
The double whammy is that Wyoming voting law allows people to register or change their party affiliation at the polling place on voting day and vote in whichever primary they choose. So RINOs are chosen in the Republican primary by Democrat voters pretending for a day to be Republicans. It makes a travesty of the two-party system and cheats Republicans of getting to select their own candidates.
Their preferred candidate, Mark Gordon, beat the conservative frontrunner, Foster Friess, by approximately 6-9,000 votes (the official count isn't in yet), well within the margin provided by Democrat voters. Comparing this year's primary to the last two, as many as 13,000 Democrats "disappeared" – many presumably masquerading as Republicans.
The Democrat choice for our next Republican governor, Mark Gordon, believes that "global warming is a critical issue for our time." The man who will now be governor of the largest coal-producer in our nation believes in what is euphemistically called alternative energy. While he makes speeches about protecting the coal industry, he makes political donations and even served on the board of groups that fight fossil fuels.
Mark Gordon made political contributions to the DNC, John Kerry, and Democrat candidates for Congress in 2004 and 2006.
In 2012, The Nature Conservancy listed him as a donor in the 10,000-to-99,999-dollar category. In 2018, a Friends of the Earth website (later removed) listed him as a "notable donor, Treasurer of Wyoming." While he has campaigned against federal restrictions on coal, in the recent past he contributed to the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). RMI is working toward a U.S. economy "needing no coal, no oil."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I used to live in Washington state. You didn’t have to choose party affiliation there, but you only got to vote in one primary.
I was republican at the time. It was common for many of us to vote in the Democrat primary.
Primaries, particularly open primaries, are a tool of the Media to increase their power.
When the parties selected candidates, the candidates were held accountable by those who worked in the party.
When the public votes for candidates, the media gets enormous power in deciding who is acceptable and who is not.
That open primary garbage gave us John McCain as candidate for president,remember? Republicans were furious and only voted when Sarah Palin was veep.
Work to change the laws
Most people aren’t aware:
Wyoming—41%
West Virginia—11%
Pennsylvania—6%
Illinois—6%
Kentucky—6%
2016 coal production data.
I believe that these open primary scams is a key way by which the GOPe perpetuates Uniparty rule. I bet the state RINOs running the show would put up a HUGE fight to protect this right-wing-disenfranchisement scam.
Could a write in or 3rd party candidacy work for the conservative candidate?
There is no guarantee that a person be from a political party, there is nothing unconstitutional about this procedure.
Not only did the Founders not support political parties, they abhorred them. They were “factions” and always trouble in a republic.
Primaries were not part of the landscape for fifty years.
It isn’t “disenfranchisement” in any sense.
What happened in Wyo was wrong and the law should be changed. That said, doing the math I’m not sure the result was altered.
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So called “open primaries” need to go. In fact, all state-funded primaries need to go. The state should have laws defining the requirements to appear on the general election ballot, and there should be no mention or consideration of party affiliation. And voter registrations should not mention party, either.
Political parties are PRIVATE organizations. They should pay their own costs to choose their candidates, and do it by whatever means they choose. If a person isn’t willing to stand up and be identified as a party member, why should that person have any input into the party’s choice of candidates?
Get rid of state-run primaries and we will get better candidates. Cross-over voting, when the other party’s candidate is assured, is an open invitation for mischief-making.
Political parties are a natural feature of government. The left is gonna organize so we got to organize to stop them, period.
Thinking they would not or should not exist was naive.
No idea, I thought WV was #1 in goal by a mile.
Troubling info about WY Gov nominee being on the enviro side and fairly recent donations to rats, as late as 2006 (in 2008 he ran for Congress as a Republican). Supposedly a rat group encouraged rats to register GOP and vote for him but I wouldn’t be certain any such chicanery provided the margin of victory.
I will note however that the I believe article is wrong in saying Friess was the frontrunner I think Gordon was the favorite.
That is certainly true.
A “Faction” was what the Founders called a political party. Madison hoped that one would offset another and produce Good.
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