Is Voting in the Primary Worth the Price of Declaring a Political Party?

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Comment by Erik Deckers on May 7, 2008 at 11:27am

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Having done work for the Kosciusko County Democrats about 10 years ago, I can tell you your primary vote doesn't mean much in terms of knowing which party you belong to. I used to vote in the Republican primaries all the time, because we Dems were an endangered species up there, but I never got a piece of mail that I wouldn't have gotten anyway.

You're basically going to get that mail regardless. You live in a Republican area, and any candidates who send you mail would have sent it even if you had voted in the Socialist primary. Last week, for my work blog, I wrote about a political candidate's poor mailing list hygiene. She actually won the election, but it didn't hurt that she was unopposed. Political candidates typically don't mail to people based on primary votes, they do it based on geography. If you live in their area, they'll mail to you.

Comment by Erin Monahan on May 7, 2008 at 9:43am

You guys are right on. And it will take a rally to affect change... Urgh!!! Thanks for your insightful comments.

Comment by Andrew Ball on May 6, 2008 at 8:35pm

Erin,

I hereby declare to you and all the world that I am a member of the Independent Party. What's that you say? There isn't an Independent Party? You mean I have to declare an affiliation to the platform of one of the parties and can only vote for their slate of candidates in the primary? But what if I like Barak AND Mitch? You say I have to wait until November to vote for Mitch and hope that Barak is on the ballot? No way! Yes way? Geesh! There has to be a better way.

By the way, I absentee voted a few weeks ago. I didn't realize how liberating that would feel until I started getting the hourly (that's hourly, not daily) "vote for me" calls. It was so guilt free to say "too late, it doesn't matter because I already voted."