YSK Registering as an "Independent" party member doesn't mean you have no party affiliation; some states have an Independent party who has a platform that you may or may not agree with!

Texas doesn't have party affiliation on your voter registration and we have open primaries.

https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2020-05.shtml

I've been considering changing my registration to Republican specifically for primaries. I'm in SD, and the Republican almost always wins so I feel I'd have more impact trying to push the right left and can still vote however I want in the general.

That’s called a closed primary. Many states have open primaries but many are still closed

In Canada you have to buy a membership to the party. That let's you vote in the leadership elections. Mosty it means you and your next 7 generations get spam soliciting donations.

Similarly, North Carolina allows unaffiliated to choose their primary, but R and D must vote in their registered primaries. Definitely good to know your state’s laws before taking OP at face value!

What does the dmv guy care about your affiliation

But also you should generally just pick a primary to vote in. You are voting in primaries, right?

Picked some random states, they're all different which is also part of the confusion when citizens move. They may not record it for the state but can those in the state still register or join a party on their own? Issue would still exist if so.

The name of the party is literally designed to con voters.

Voter registration may also affect relationships (professional or otherwise)

I’m in California and I’ve been NPA (No Party Affiliation) for almost my entire voting-age life. So NPA is an option… at least in some states.

It depends on the state. When I lived in Florida, there was a party on my id card. In Texas, there isn’t, though you can only vote in one party’s primary (including any runoffs) per election.

In many states, in order to vote in the primary elections of a party you have to be registered to that party.

Because they're doing it by mistake. They're intending to register to vote as independent (no party aligned) voters, seeing "Independent" under party, and choosing that.

To participate in the party's election of a candidate. So you select a candidate within the party and then select the winner from the candidates each party selected.

Technically you don't have to be affiliated to run for office. But once you're talking about federal offices that route is functionally restricted to billionaires. And voters who are unaffiliated just don't get the first round of voting. So it's highly incentivized to affiliate.

Canadian here, we don't do that either. Primaries is one of the many additional structural barriers to representive voting being adopted in the US and a step away from having more than two parties in their system. It also increases the campaign costs for candidates and exacerbates the issues with first past the post voting meaning running people becomes an exclusive exercise for the wealthy or people with wealthy patrons who make handshake agreements.

As I understand it, Instead of having parties internally figure out who they are running on the docket as party head like sane people they open it up to basically a second first past the post election of internal candidates. You register as a member of those parties when you register to vote to participate (or not) in the election before the actual election. Personally to one outside that system that just seems like an additional bundle of problems to deal with by doubling down an already outdated voting system that creates further issues of populism but some Americans are very fond of archaic systems. You know something something founders of our nation blah blah can't change anything our fathers who art in 6ft of dirt didn't personally come up with blah.

Forgive my glibness. Being a neighbour is hard sometimes.

In America, the government doesn't technically have the right to know where you live. You don't automatically get to vote without registering because the government doesn't necessarily know where you live. You have to give your address to get a driver's license, so often that government office also does voter registration.

Before our elections, we have primaries. That's where each party picks who the candidates are from that party, but they are a state-run event. Technically a party doesn't need to do this, they could just submit their candidate to the final election. Every state does it a little differently, but in many states, you need to declare which party you are a part of in order to take part in the decision for who that party is sending to the election. In some states, it's optional, and when you go to vote in a primary, you tell them which party you want to select the candidate for, and they give you that ballot. Other states are weird and do what's called "caucusing", where everyone from a particular party within that voting district meets up, and they try to come to a decision on which candidate to send forward. In those states, it's not a blind vote, but you essentially get a sort of instant runoff, at least in my understanding.

It looks like in Ireland, since you have multiple parties, you have more options at your elections, so you don't have to help the parties pick their candidates?

I’m Ireland we use proportional representation

America does not do that.

registering as a member of a political party in the US means literally nothing

Not exactly... While it doesn't stop you from voting for whoever you want in normal elections, you do have to be registered to a party to vote in their primaries. You also can use an absentee ballot to just automatically vote for your registered party. Or at least, you can do that in California.