I've decided that I am dead set against Open Primaries. Even for Independents. What do you think?

i would have semi-closed with independents, but no open ones.

I'm very split about this.

I think that in general, closed primaries will tend to nominate the most doctrinaire partisan, and alienate the general population. It drives down turnout, and that is bad thing not only because low turnout leads to Republican victories. Plus, open primaries, or at least primaries that allow one to register for the party at the polls, bring new voters into the party. Obama, for example, has brought a tremendous number of new voters into the Democratic Party, and that would not have been possible if people had to have been registered as Democrats months before the primary.

The obvious negative is that people can fuck with the party from the outside. Just as many Democrats voted for Mitt Romney in Michigan to cause chaos in the GOP primary when the Democratic primary didn't count, many Republicans seem to have voted for Hillary in Texas to do the same when the GOP nomination has already been sewn up by McCain. Less drastically, core positions can be watered down by independents who genuinely like a moderate candidate.

In general, I'm in favor of making voting as easy and accessible as possible for all people, so I think I'd fall into the open-ish primaries camp.

would there be a benefit to opening up primaries only to people registered as independent along with the people registered as whichever of the two main parties' primary?

Seems like it.

Two sides to it, as usual.

It would keep avowed members of the other party out, which would possibly remove the mischief factor. Or the really mischievious would all register independent. Why would anyone register with a party? Why do people register with a party now in states with open primaries?

But keeping independents in the primaries will just allow people to become primaries and do what is happening now. As much as I think it's good that Hillary won yesterday, and the mudslinging will continue, I disagree with why it happened (partially anyway). Republicans shouldn't be fucking with the process of the Democrats electing their candidate. And in a way, I don't think Independents should either. If you close your primaries, it would make people CHOOSE so that they could be apart of the Democratic process. Independents do lead to more moderate votes, so let them pick a party, and pull the direction of the party accordingly. If you don't want to choose, then you chose not to choose. It was your choice not to participate.

If you want to shape the progress of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, then pic a damn party, and shape it. Otherwise, wait for the general election.

Otherwise, you'll have millions of people sitting on the sidelines with the expressed purpose of polluting the enemy like we've seen in Michigan and Texas when it's convenient and easy to do so. Like...when you have an incumbant running. Then you can have all these fucking Indie's who are support Democrats turning Republican election processes inside out.

Everything should be closed. Closing it doesn't cut into peoples ability to vote persay, it just means they must be more active and assertive in the process to ensure they have that opportunity come primary time.

Is there really any evidence that this has occurred on anything other than a small-scale?

PD has more official feelers out there than I do. I can't find anything specific, but WORD on the media is that it was significant in both cases. As well is in New Hampshire for McCain as well.

I don't know, not anymore anyway. I don't see a huge set of idealogical differences between the Dems and the Repubs anymore- I mean sure there are differences, but people of radically different opinions aren't going to see much difference.
and I don't know - in answer to the second part of that question. I think there's some 'herd mentality' influence in there somewhere- I love my country, I believe, this , that, and some other thing would be good for it, so I must be a whatever...

I've always voted Democrat, but I'm registered Independent, and that was done years and years ago- so I hope no one accuses me of being registered independent because it's now fashionable.
I'd love to see a truly different, and progressive Independent candidate, but I don't think the country can hack it, and party affiliation is now largely about - either vote for one of the two party candidates, or essentially waste your vote.
So I don't think that's an answer, but it's what I think about it...

There was a concerted effort by people in both the Michigan and Texas cases this year, but it's unclear how successful they were. Anecdotal evidence, as well as some statistical evidence, show that Rush's "vote for Hillary" campaign in Texas yesterday had some significant effect. Many people report talking to Republicans doing just this, and I saw a nice breakdown of exit polls showing whether voters self-labelled "very liberal", "liberal", "moderate", etc and how they voted. The breakdown was 51-48 for all groups except for "very conservative", which broke down 58-41.

It was quite well publicized that in 2000 Michigan independents and Dems voted for McCain in large numbers mostly as a slap in the face to the current governor who was out schmoozing with Bush hoping for a cabinet position.

Ok, I'll chime in despite being a foreigner (never stopped me, I'm not even allowed to vote in the country I live and pay tax in!)

you all seem to have an assumption that independents are between Reps and Dems.. but Nader supporters are indeps and they're far more left wing than either parties! whilst still being very moderate by most non-US standards.

I did the political compass test..and you look at Reps and Dems and almost everyone is in the same quadrant, very little difference.
you can be independent and be very far off BOTH the main parties (as I would, Nader is a moderate to my opinions! in the US I guess I'd be considered a communist, which I'm certainly not!).

if I was living in the US, I'd be registered as indep, and would vote for both big parties primaries. As long as it is in effect a 2-party country, then as an indep, you vote for selecting the members of those, trying to select the lesser evil in each, then you either vote for one of those in the main election, or vote for an indep like Nader (sorry, I don't know of any other indep..is there?)
But if you voted in the primaries you don't waste your vote on the indep.. you've made the 'useful' vote in the primaries, then you can make your real vote in the main election..eventually, things might move to a real pluralist party system that way... and everyone benefits from that..it's stops being a them or us, you have real CHOICE, not having to vote against, but FOR someone.

those who don't like indeps voting in primaries:
do you think it's really helping either parties if only the most extreme elements vote to chose the candidates? won't that just ensure the picked candidate will alienate the indeps/undecided, less people voting because, hell, what's the point they're all the same?
isn't that plain bad for a country if a government is elected with only 20% of the people that CAN vote having chosen them? which if you include youngsters and foreigners mean they're rulling on the choice of like 15% of teh population? how can that be democracy?

Even in open primaries, you can only vote for one party. At least that's the case in Idaho.

what's the point then?
and how do they check? especially with caucuses (if I understand those right!)

How do they check? How do they check that you don't vote twice in ANY election?

*no longer trusts British elections*

you wouldn't believe how easy it is to vote as someone else, or multiple times, in English elections!
I think it's quite a tribute to the British character that there isn't widespread fraud...the same system in southern Europe and it'd be chaos!!

Why have primaries at all? It's just an expensive popularity contest, full of lies and pandering and BS that would never fly in the general election.