I Hate Closed Primaries

It's an election year, I'm going to talk politics, it's just the nature of things. Besides, this is the perfect forum to get out my thoughts on how things are. So why not start it off with a rant? :-P

Like many states, Maryland has a "closed primary" when it comes to picking how many delegates will vote for a certain presidential candidate at the party's national convention. That means that you have to be a member of a recognized political party in order to vote for those candidates in the primary, if you don't declare a party, you don't get to vote, period.

It irritates the fuck out of me that I have to declare, why? Because now it means that a political party knows my address and they will cheerfully hand it over to some person to come knock on my door or even to try and locate my phone number so they can call me. I don't want to be bothered during an election year with calls and visits asking for money, or to hear why I should support candidate X or why candidate Z is bad. I like my privacy, and I would rather take my own time to research and decide for myself who I want to vote for. I read enough of the politics of the election in the Washington Post while I'm on the train. I know what's going on, I am making an effort to stay informed, so don't fucking bug me.

"But Wait!" Some of you might say. Didn't you go door to door for the Democrat party in 2004? Yes, I did, however, I did that during the general election, and all I did was go and ask people if they had voted (I did not ask for who), informed them of their polling place if they weren't aware, and arranged transportation if they needed it to get to their polling place. No pushing which candidate to vote for, just asking you to go and vote.

It would be easier if there was an open primary in Maryland. I basically go and only vote for one party, I can't vote for the other, and I don't have my name appear on a list of "People who are whores for X political party." I suppose one could argue that if I hate having to declare a party so much, why am I even bothering to vote in the primary? It's because being able to vote takes higher priority than avoiding landing on someones list. I'll do everything I can to stay off the political party's radars, but I'm not going to throw away my chance to vote over it.

I can't wait until February 13, I will be dropping a voter registration card in the mail to change my party affiliation back to "no party" and it will feel very good to do that.