Lingamfelter Proposes Registration By Party
By Greg L | 30 November 2007 | 31st HOD District, Virginia Politics | 11 Comments
Well, at least someone out there is paying attention to the “loyalty oath” flap. Delegate Scott Lingamfelter has introduced HB20 during the legislative pre-filing period, which will adopt voter registration by party in the Commonwealth. If this is enacted, all of this silliness about pledges and oaths goes away, and still political parties do get to control who selects their nominees.
This sorely needs to pass.
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The only “silliness about pledges and oaths” is the “silliness” of those who call it an “oath,” and usually mispresent it, at that. Such a requirement is not “silly” in the absence of registration by party, and I agree that it “sorely needs to pass.”
[…] state parties to set who may participate in their primaries. Much needed and about time. (Via BVBL). November 30th, 2007 at 12:20 pm | Tags: asides, […]
It will take the wind out of the convention mantra, “we don’t want Dems to vote in a primary” which is nonsense anyway.
Hopefully Scott’s legislation will address the conventions in Primaries, as the are ruining this State. We have already seen the Demc. taking over as the Primary by Convention has not delivered a Good Candidate. If this is kept up we will see a majority of Democrats ruling and watch our handouts soar.
I hear Jim Young ran his mouth at the last meeting and questioned a long time worker . I guesss this is what you get when you do everything you can to get the right person elected.
No Jim, Faisal was not the right person.Never was and never will be.
He does not know how to attend committee meetings. He does not know how to be responsible for a gathering and bring the food. Someone else had to do it.
Good luck getting it through the Senate.
My goodness, the big tent compassionate conservative
GOP seems to have lasted less time than the Edsel or
New Coke. But don’t think declaring yourselves the party
of exclusion is going to work much better.
VA needs to enter the 20th century (no, that is NOT a typo) and do away with this current system without party registration established by the Byrd machine in order to keep the GOP from ever gaining power. The only ones who benefit from the system now are the members of parties who do not generally support the principles of their avowed parties yet for one reason or another use that party in order to get elected.
The simplest way to do this is have party registration, including the option to be “unaffiliated” (in other words “independent” small “i”). Then for primaries, only allow registered members of a party (and at the discretion of the party also allow those voters who are unaffiliated) to participate.
i get the purpose of the “oath”. i know it’s non-binding, i get that it’s unenforcable. i get that it’s directed at Dems who vote in Rep primary races to get the candidate on the ballot that they want to face in the General election, and this oath is an attempt to guilt a Dem who does this to support the Rep candidate they voted for.
guess what? i’m a Rep, and i’ll be voting in the Dem primary….because I CAN, and for the same reason a Dem will cross over! and the Dems aren’t asking me to sign some stupid “oath”.
i don’t know what idiot came up with this idea. i only know how it is perceived by the Independent and uncommitted voters of Virginia. how soon can we expect decent leadership in the Virginia Republican Party? at this rate, the Dems won’t have to work to turn this state completely blue…..we’ll not only buy the Royal Blue paint, we’ll be doing the actual painting! and fundraisers wonder why i’m not parting with my cash for a campaign contribution to a national or state party. i don’t waste my cash for lousy products. forget the parlor tricks, give me a good solid candidate i can vote FOR, i’m tired of voting against candidates.
i hope that Scott is successful with this bill. maybe it will save us from ourselves. someone or something has to.
[…] bill to bring registration by party to Virginia Posted on 1 December, 2007 by Ric James Via BVBL, VA Delegate Scott Lingamfelter has introduced HB20 which proposes to bring party registration to […]
I guess my major question is how much crossover voting really happens?
I mean I know many “conservatives” blame that on their losses in primaries, but I have always viewed that as more of a cop-out for losing than actual concrete evidence it happened. Obviously in a super close election it probably has an effect; but I can’t believe dems come out in droves to vote in our primary.
Does anyone have hard evidence that this happens on a regular basis?
To GOPHokie’s point, I have also never seen any hard eveidence that cross over voting is running rampant in the Commonwealth. I know in Chesterfield it was pulled out when the unendorsed candidate in the REP. primaries won as a ploy by DEMS but I personally didn’t see it while working at the polls. HB20 needs to pass to stop this perception and/or practice from happening any longer but I doubt it will get through the Senate.