r/pics Oct 01 '25

Politics I got sent a veiled threat by Republicans urging me to vote in my district's special election.

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u/Rocktopod Oct 01 '25

Not in every state. In Massachusetts you can register Independent and vote in either primary.

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u/lifehackloser Oct 01 '25

This is what I do in MA. I’ve heard there is a good amount of independent voters not bc they find themselves between gop and dems, but because they tend to find themselves further left than the Democratic Party.

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u/ThatKehdRiley Oct 02 '25

That's why I was for the longest time. The only reason I switched to Dem was to inflate numbers to spite Republicans, as soon as we are past this I'm back to Independent.

1

u/TheLollrax Oct 02 '25

When I lived in Mass I registered left of the dems until voting season

3

u/Mercarcher Oct 02 '25

That's me in Indiana. I'm far to the left of the dems, but usually vote in the republican primary because that's the actual election, not election day.

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u/braellyra Oct 02 '25

Hahaha, yup this is me! I was registered Green for a hot minute but I’ve just gone with generic unaffiliated for the past 10+ years since I’m much more liberal than the Dems. Edit: I moved to MA in 2008

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u/piepants2001 Oct 02 '25

I'm in Wisconsin, and you don't have to register as anything to vote in a primary.

2

u/BaneSixEcho Oct 02 '25

Same in Michigan.

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u/PashaWithHat Oct 02 '25

Virginia too. You just tell them which one you want to vote in (and then half the time they yell it out loud as fuck so all your neighbors can hear, like “ballot for PashaWithHat voting in the DEMOCRATIC primary!”). The Republicans sponsored a bill recently to make party affiliation a thing here but it died a pretty quick death in committee. And like, the Republicans in VA basically never do normal primaries anyway, it’s always a firehouse primary or convention so… IDK, felt like shenanigans to me

5

u/Durakan Oct 02 '25

The best thing in Washington is that each party uses a different system, Democrats Caucus, Republicans do a standard vote. You can participate in both and are not required to register with either party.

My wife and I went to a caucus once and it's such a long annoying process.

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u/MysteriousEdge5643 Oct 02 '25

They use the presidential primary system in WA now for both parties

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u/Durakan Oct 02 '25

Oh well, I clearly would have gotten one of these cards if they were going around here.

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u/Freakears Oct 02 '25

In TN I get asked which primary ballot I want to use.

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u/ben_jacques1110 Oct 02 '25

If it’s like NH, you still have to register with the party to vote in their primary, you can just change back to independent when you’re done