Do you think it is ok for voter registration to be public record?

I don’t like it. There are so many people these days who use this information to target people they disagree with. We live in scary times.

No.

I like no party registration.

Even better would be no big parties.

Absolutely not. In this day and age of privacy, there is no room for this.

I think that falls under personal information and should be private.

When I google people, which I do all the time, it’s not unusual for their political party to come up right in the search. Also, if you’ve ever donated to a political party, that may come up, too. Just a warning.

I wonder if it’s private in some states? I haven’t tested it.

When you vote in a primary, there is a list of names telling who is eligible to vote. There are also people who saw you in the line waiting to vote. I don’t see how privacy is possible.

Is it critical in verifying the truth in case of election cheating by evil citizens? If it is, yes. If not then no.

@mazingerz88 Verification is critical when voting. It however should not be a public record.

^^Of course. It’s being in public record as being critical or not to the verification process I’m wondering about.

@mazingerz88 The verification process should not be in the public record. I strongly believe that tighter controls be standardized around registration and voter validation.
I do not know the answer or even recommendation as I have not put any thoughts to this. It however is a great question and topic.

When I go to vote in the primary the person working the polls knows my party, but not everyone else in the room know my party. That is different than a neighbor looking me up. It’s like saying it’s ok to publish online that I see a cardiologist. If someone sees me go into the cardiologists office they will probably assume I am a patient there, but a neighbor can’t look up the doctors I see.

Being on record for people who work the polls to check is very different than publicizing party affiliation.

Not at all, it’s an easy way for unhinged people to go after perceived “attackers of their freedom”.

@JLeslie Where I vote, one side is for Democrats and one side is for Republicans. So everyone knows which party you are affiliated with.
But, I agree that it should not be of public record. There are too many nut jobs running around trying to find a reason to hurt people.

@chyna At least in the polling area everyone in there has been checked in so there is a record of who was there.

I don’t remember being separated by party where I vote. Why do they do that? Don’t they just give you the correct paper ballot or card for the touch screens? Even so I think people around see or hear your party if they are paying attention.

It has been public in all the states I’ve voted.

@JLeslie It’s WV. In the 50’s my aunt used to go around and pick up people to vote and gave them a bottle of moonshine. They probably still do that out in the sticks.

LOL. :)

It’s not my favorite thing, but I am not affiliated with any political party so it doesn’t really give away much information about me. I occasionally google my (adult) students because our teacher platform used to provide student photos but there are a lot more missing since COVID and I really like to add their photos to my information sheet to study the first couple weeks of class. I really don’t like coming across their voter registration info because I don’t want to be biased in any way so I try hard to avoid it.

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It’s not OK and it should be banned. How you vote is a personal matter.

In NC I can get voter registration lists. I have to request them, but they are readily available. I can also look individuals up and find out some information about them. There is really not much personal information listed. It lists my party affiliation, my voter registration number, what county I’m in and a bit about the politics…senate district, house district, judicial district, etc. Not much else

I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. On one hand it gives out a list of people and what party they vote for and what district they are in. This could be used to steal identities for voter fraud. As far as worrying about someone finding out I’m unaffiliated to a party and wanting to give me grief, all I can say is that person has way too much time on their hands. On the other hand, it allows me to check to see if my registration data is accurate. It allows poll workers to check this as well to make sure you are in the right voting area, not voting in a primary if you are unaffiliated, and you can be checked off as having already voted if it comes to that.

As an interesting side note, I saw my wife is a registered Democrat. It doesn’t matter to me at all, I just don’t know if she knows it or not.

@seawulf575 So when you insult Democrats, does that mean your wife is included in the sweeping insults? Or do you mean “all Democrats except my wife?”

@seawulf575’s wife is a DEMOCRAT! Lol lol lol.
I’m crying laughing!

@jca2 When I insult Democrats, I am insulting how they think and their policies and those that support those policies. My wife originally registered as a Democrat not because she supported the policies but because her parents had always registered as Democrats. She was very non-political. Since then she has started asking questions and is more like me…a conservative. She hears the garbage coming out of the left and sees it for the scam it is. I suspect she doesn’t even know she is registered as a Democrat.

@seawulf575 I suspect she does because Democratic politicians would be sending her mailings (as per lists they get fromt he local Demcoratic party). I also used to get literature left on my door sometimes by Demoratic politicians and phone calls from places (like unions) who endorse the politicians. At election time, my mailbox gets mailings all the time from local Dems.

I’m a Democrat and I can tell you I don’t receive mailings and phone calls from and in reference to Republican politicians.

@jca2 We get mailings from all the candidates during election seasons. It isn’t more from Democrats though. In fact most of them are not addressed to anyone in particular, just “Resident”.

And she is out of town right now so I can’t just ask her. Dammit.

I hate that voter registration information is public, here in CT. It is one of the reasons I am registered as Independent. I also get fewer mailings, and in hyper-local elections I vote the person, not the party.

It is meant to check your voter registration status. I can look up mine but I need to enter the last 4 for my social for it to be accessed. Even then it simply states where to vote and when I have voted. Nothing on which party I vote for or who I voted for. Does Florida list voting details? That would be insane.

^^I need to enter the last 4 of my social and my birth date to order a mail-in ballot and see the status of my mail-in vote (received, counted, etc) but I don’t have to enter anything like that just to see I’m registered and what party. It doesn’t show who you voted for. That would go completely against the secret ballot, and is partly why I hate Iowa caucusing.

I’m pretty sure I cannot see if my in-person vote was counted, which bothers me. Is the vote counted when I put it in the machine?

FOLLOW UP: I did discuss this with my wife. As suspected, she didn’t know. She declared a party when she was 18 and starting to vote. She never thought about it after that. She did, however, ask how she could change it.

^I think most of us just followed in our parent’s footsteps when we first registered to vote.

^ Not me! I registered differently, and defiantly told them I was Independent. My Dad asked why, and appreciated that I had thought it out. My mother told me I had done that deliberately to humiliate her. I never discussed how I voted with them.

My dad was a registered Republican and my mom a Democrat when I was growing up.

My parents were Democrats as far as I know. I always looked at the character of the candidates, not the Letter assigned after their name. I do know that mom and I got into some real rows about Trump though! Not that she didn’t like him, but that she couldn’t believe the media bias was as rampant as I did and could easily prove to her. She would have fit right in with the group on these pages ;-)

^^Proof you are wrong. Mothers know better.

@mazingerz88 You might normally be right, but I managed to convince her that the media WAS biased. She still didn’t like Trump, but she was recognizing that many of the reasons she didn’t like him were based on lies.

^^^^^ HA HA HA ^^^^^^

Mommies are really good at letting our kids believe they have convinced us of stuff. It makes them (the kids) feel good.

^^Lol Right!

@canidmajor I don’t know about your mommy, but mine was not one that coddled me or gave in often. She was a fighter when it came to her beliefs. She would rather argue with me than just give in and let me live in ignorance. Gee, where could I have gotten that from? So when she says things like “Oh. I didn’t know that” or “Then why does the media say things like that?!?” I know she is accepting what I am telling/showing her.