3 ms·

A lot of voters actually sign a piece of paper to do exactly that. It’s called registering as a Republican or Democrat. Many states have rules on who is allow

by MR4D 2y ago

A lot of voters actually sign a piece of paper to do exactly that. It’s called registering as a Republican or Democrat. Many states have rules on who is allowed to vote in which primaries based on that same information. But perhaps I am missing you point?

potato3732842 2y ago
Party registration is uninteresting at scale as it just determines whether someone is the left or right half of the bell curve. It doesn't tell you if they're in the fat part or the long tail or what issues they care deeply about. The feds are very interested in cataloging who does and doesn't have extremist views (the long tail). Militant commies, 3%ers, stuff like that. And once some bit of iconography is identified they can run a historical search to see who had it before it went mainstream enough for the feds to pick up on it. While it's fashionable to denigrate extremists pretty much every useful and/or positive political movement starts out there at some point.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  It's also something you do once, and don't have to repeat every year. You could have registered as a Democrat when you were 18, and never bothered to change your affiliation. Putting a sign outside of your house is something you have to actively do.
lesuorac 2y ago
Some states also let you not-vote in a primary based on that information so you can register independent to vote in your choice of primaries. It's also not the greatest piece of information as evidenced in 2016 where Trump under-performed compared to other Republican positions (pg 6 vs pg 10 [1]). Like a party registration of Republican may likely mean you voted for their candidates but that's all it means, "likely". Empirically, people do not always vote their party registration (nevermind even vote). But I do find it annoying how trivially the state seems to give away all of your information that people are ok with using as authentication ... Or just to send you a ton of text messages. [1]: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2016.pdf https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federale...
willcipriano 2y ago
Some people have opinions that are outside of the purview of the two parties, for example ending the forever war.

by MR4D 2y ago

potato3732842 2y ago

Party registration is uninteresting at scale as it just determines whether someone is the left or right half of the bell curve. It doesn't tell you if they're in the fat part or the long tail or what issues they care deeply about. The feds are very interested in cataloging who does and doesn't have extremist views (the long tail). Militant commies, 3%ers, stuff like that. And once some bit of iconography is identified they can run a historical search to see who had it before it went mainstream enough for the feds to pick up on it. While it's fashionable to denigrate extremists pretty much every useful and/or positive political movement starts out there at some point.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
It's also something you do once, and don't have to repeat every year. You could have registered as a Democrat when you were 18, and never bothered to change your affiliation. Putting a sign outside of your house is something you have to actively do.

lesuorac 2y ago

Some states also let you not-vote in a primary based on that information so you can register independent to vote in your choice of primaries. It's also not the greatest piece of information as evidenced in 2016 where Trump under-performed compared to other Republican positions (pg 6 vs pg 10 [1]). Like a party registration of Republican may likely mean you voted for their candidates but that's all it means, "likely". Empirically, people do not always vote their party registration (nevermind even vote). But I do find it annoying how trivially the state seems to give away all of your information that people are ok with using as authentication ... Or just to send you a ton of text messages. [1]: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2016.pdf https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federale...

willcipriano 2y ago

Some people have opinions that are outside of the purview of the two parties, for example ending the forever war.