General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 27 Percent of New York’s Registered Voters Won’t Be Able to Vote in the State’s Primary [View all]elljay
(1,178 posts)of the average voter. We're more interested in issues and politics than in the Kardashians (I'm making an assumption about you ). There actually are people out there, lots of them, who don't follow politics until the elections are right on top of them. They wouldn't have any idea about the rules or think about looking them up in advance. I have a number of friends who started out as Republicans but who've left that party as it became increasingly crazy. There are Republicans even now for whom the thought of voting for Trump or Cruz is the last straw and they're ready to come over to us. The question is, do we recognize that a segment of the population is always going to be like this and make it easier for them to become engaged, or do we push them away? With all of the Republican voter obstruction, I think we need to be doing anything we can to encourage people to vote. I am quite sure that there are people who will go to the polls tomorrow, find out they are not able to vote in the primary, and then decide to not bother in November. If we want to not only win the presidency, but also win in the down ticket races, we need each and every one of these people on our side. I don't mind some reasonable rules to minimize trolls trying to muck things up, but I suspect there are fewer trolls trying to do this than regular people who really want to vote for the candidate they support and who just didn't get their act together in time.