2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: We Should Only Let Democrats Choose Our Nominee [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)There are closed primaries, and then there are absurdly closed primaries, such as New York's. It may be the only example.
In other closed primaries, a change of party affiliation takes effect something like 30 or 45 days before the primary, enabling the new party member to vote in the primary. In New York, there must elapse 30 days and then a general election. As a result, the deadline for changing for the April 2016 primary was in early October 2015 -- before even the first Democratic debate.
The Sanders campaign was well aware of this. In addition to online efforts, they were tabling. More than once, in September and early October, I saw Sanders volunteers at a table in Manhattan, with a big sign warning people about this idiotic rule.
There's a limit to how effective they could be, though. On DU, people had been arguing the merits of the candidates for months. Out in the real world, many voters hadn't even begun thinking about the primary. Some registered independents or Green Party members or the like might focus on the race as their own state's primary approached, or earlier when they read about the results from Iowa and New Hampshire, or even earlier than that if they watched the first debate and were inspired to want to vote for one of the candidates. These people would not pay attention to the reregistration push in October and would then find themselves out of luck.
Incidentally, the New York rule is the same for all primaries, including those for the state legislature, which are held in September. That means that, to vote in the primary -- which, in one of the many heavily Democratic or Republican districts, is often the only vote that matters -- a former independent had to have enrolled in that party some eleven months earlier.
One could argue that there are really 5 types of primaries. You need to add to your list, above the "Closed", the "Absurdly Closed". That category would have New York and perhaps no other state.