It says they studied over 500.000 deaths, and also that they broke down the deceaseds' political affiliations. That they found that once vaccines were available for everyone, there was a much...
It says they studied over 500.000 deaths, and also that they broke down the deceaseds' political affiliations. That they found that once vaccines were available for everyone, there was a much higher mortality rate among those affiliated with one particular political party. That it was similar mortality rates up until vaccination was freely available.
I am not from the US, so forgive me if I am getting stuck on the entirely wrong thing here...
But aren't votes anonymous in the US?
How would they know the actual political leanings of half a million deceased people?
Okay... Forgive my ignorance, but is actual membership in political parties very common in America? Where I live, very few people maintain active, paid memberships in any political party outside...
Okay... Forgive my ignorance, but is actual membership in political parties very common in America?
Where I live, very few people maintain active, paid memberships in any political party outside of being active in the local politics themselves.
In the US we don't need to pay membership fees or anything to be considered an active member of a political party. We basically choose a party when we register for a Driver's License and are...
In the US we don't need to pay membership fees or anything to be considered an active member of a political party. We basically choose a party when we register for a Driver's License and are considered a member of that party unless we later change parties or register as unaffiliated with a party.
But why? Does it make a practical difference in any way? This is so intriguing to me, I've never known that Americans do this. Another user answered here that you receive ballots to vote with...
But why? Does it make a practical difference in any way?
This is so intriguing to me, I've never known that Americans do this.
Another user answered here that you receive ballots to vote with based on this affiliation, of I am understanding it correctly.
What do you do if you want to vote for another party? Can you give individual persons a vote regardless of that politicians party membership?
Or is it locked to the party you register with in advance?
It really only matters for primaries (as another user mentioned). Depending on the state, you can have open or closed primaries. In an open primary, everyone gets to vote for candidates in both...
It really only matters for primaries (as another user mentioned). Depending on the state, you can have open or closed primaries. In an open primary, everyone gets to vote for candidates in both parties. In a closed primary, only Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries and only Republicans can vote in Republican primaries. People who are registered as Independent/unaffiliated/other 3rd party cannot vote in these at all, which is why many people who are otherwise independent voters will register with one of the two major parties: they want a say in who gets nominated.
For every other election, your party affiliation doesn't matter all that much. You can be a Democrat and vote for Republicans and vice versa.
To my understanding, you can only do that in a top-two primary (California, Washington, Nebraska) or jungle primary (Louisiana). Most, if not all, open primaries let you pick one or the other, but...
everyone gets to vote for candidates in both parties
To my understanding, you can only do that in a top-two primary (California, Washington, Nebraska) or jungle primary (Louisiana). Most, if not all, open primaries let you pick one or the other, but not both.
We have 50 different states that handle things 50 different ways, so take any answer with that in mind. On the actual election day, I can go in and press one button to vote Republican down the...
We have 50 different states that handle things 50 different ways, so take any answer with that in mind.
On the actual election day, I can go in and press one button to vote Republican down the line, another button to vote Democrat down the line, and a third button to initiate the "one by one" voting. If I pick one of the first two options, I get a few questions at the end in the case that there are no runners of that party, or potentially multiple runners in that party.
Primaries are different. Those are just the political parties deciding who they want to run in the real elections.
As DeaconBlue stated, 50 states (plus DC/territories which gets more complicated), 50 different ways. I'm in Texas, we have a Primary election and a General election. The Primary election is where...
As DeaconBlue stated, 50 states (plus DC/territories which gets more complicated), 50 different ways.
I'm in Texas, we have a Primary election and a General election. The Primary election is where you vote to decide the candidates for each party. The General election is where you vote for those candidates for the actual position. Our Primaries are "open" meaning anyone can vote in any Primary for a candidate (but cannot vote in both party's Primaries) without any official political affiliation.
This leads to claims that left wing people vote in right wing primaries to tip the scales toward a candidate less likely to win and vice versa.
There are different rules in each state as to how much of the records are public/available. In Texas I can request data on everyone that voted in a particular election (Primary or General), which will give me their name, voter ID, address, etc. but not who they voted for. That still makes it easy to find out party affiliation by requesting Primary voter rolls and cross referencing it with a list of COVID deaths.
The US has a soft party system. The parties themselves don't really matter, everything is based off the individual candidates and their personal networks and influence. The parties exist for the...
The US has a soft party system. The parties themselves don't really matter, everything is based off the individual candidates and their personal networks and influence. The parties exist for the purposes of brand loyalty and fundraising/volunteer lists and little else. Your party affiliation doesn't affect your general election vote in any way. All it affects is who ends up sending you more mail and spam phone calls.
Party registration's effects vary from state to state. Each state manages elections on their own, so we have 50+ different party systems and election structures (states and territories). In most states you only vote in the primaries or caucus under the party you affiliate with. You register under that party so the election commission knows which primary ballot to send you or which caucuses you attend. The primaries/caucuses are where we determine the lists the party will run in the general election. Other states have "open primaries" where you pick which primary ballot you want to vote for and if you fill out both they invalidate your vote. Still other states have "jungle primaries" where you vote for whomever and the top two go to the general election regardless of party ID.
Basically, unlike the parliamentary systems most other countries have, our parties build ruling coalitions ex ante, through the primary systems. Parliamentary systems build their coalitions ex post. That means you have parties and you have elections where people vote for parties and then those parties decide how to pool their seats to form a governing coalition (or one party gets a majority and can govern on its own).
Our system has people select the party lists up front on a per district basis. Then in the general election the overall strength of each party carries in to determine who wins in the general. Instead of multiple parties that contest the general elections, we have multiple factions within the two major parties. (We have third parties but they're universally jokes filled with grifters and cranks.) Whichever gets a majority we have already selected the seats and determined what the ideological composition of the ruling government will be ahead of the time. So a Mitt Romney led Republican party and a Donald Trump led Republican party indicate very different party lists under them. But the parties are never that strong, so nobody really has the power to "whip" votes the way they do in parliamentary systems. Individual legislators can wield enormous power if they have their own funding for their own reelection campaigns or are indifferent to reelection.
Yes they are. They’re not trying to prevent anything they’re trying to soak up campaign donations by running doomed Presidential campaigns where they pander to disaffected voters without any...
Yes they are. They’re not trying to prevent anything they’re trying to soak up campaign donations by running doomed Presidential campaigns where they pander to disaffected voters without any obligation to make promises that are concrete or realistic because they know they’ll never have to be held to account for any of it.
They do this instead of directing money and energy towards places that can actually move policy because it’s more lucrative to grandstand and collect donations and fundraise than it is to do policy research or advocacy work. This generates a feedback loop in which the party becomes ever more focused on grandstanding and fundraising without ever needing to cultivate the skills to execute on policy or actually win elections, the actual functions of a political party.
There’s a reason the international Green Party stopped affiliating with the American Green Party. The original US Greens were an advocacy and activist group that sometimes contested elections where they saw opportunity to win or shift the policy debate. The modern Greens split from the initial party and exists solely to run vanity presidential campaigns featuring shameless cranks.
If the green party wanted to make changes they need to push candidates at the local level, by only running in federal elections they are siphoning away votes from candidates who more closely align...
If the green party wanted to make changes they need to push candidates at the local level, by only running in federal elections they are siphoning away votes from candidates who more closely align with them and at least acknowledge the issues. It's not like they can say if they don't win my votes go to this person.
If we weren't first past the post voting I could see your point but we are set up the way we are so the green party and libertarian parties are spoiler
I have not in any of my elections had a green party candidate I could vote for besides presidential. Maybe they run locally by you but that is not true by me and I live in a very purple state.
I have not in any of my elections had a green party candidate I could vote for besides presidential. Maybe they run locally by you but that is not true by me and I live in a very purple state.
A large part of it is to allow you to vote in a primary. In closed primary states you need to be registered with that party to have a say in who represents them. Semi-closed primary states also...
A large part of it is to allow you to vote in a primary. In closed primary states you need to be registered with that party to have a say in who represents them. Semi-closed primary states also allow unaffiliated voters to participate.
Wait, can you not vote freely among all available options? Can you register towards more than one available party to keep your options open at election days?
Wait, can you not vote freely among all available options?
Can you register towards more than one available party to keep your options open at election days?
The primary is where you select a candidate amongst your party and it happens before the general election. That's where you might have the Democrats choose between Biden or Bernie Sanders and...
The primary is where you select a candidate amongst your party and it happens before the general election. That's where you might have the Democrats choose between Biden or Bernie Sanders and those intra-party debates help get an idea of what the values/positions of people likely to vote Democrat are.
After that you have the election where Biden competes with Trump and there is another shift of platform to try to appeal to the country at large while trying to keep promises/positions made in the primary. Day-of the election you can vote for whoever you want, no matter what.
A good number of states have open primaries which wouldn't require you be a registered Democrat to vote in the Democratic primary, but an issue you could run into is having Republicans (or anti-Democrats) participating in the primary to try to push a less electable or less representative candidate. Some people have explicitly switched party to do that, and since primaries have less voters participating in them it can be easier to tip the scales.
538 did an analysis on this and concluded that the number of people motivated enough to do this aren't really statistically meaningful.
A good number of states have open primaries which wouldn't require you be a registered Democrat to vote in the Democratic primary, but an issue you could run into is having Republicans (or anti-Democrats) participating in the primary to try to push a less electable or less representative candidate. Some people have explicitly switched party to do that, and since primaries have less voters participating in them it can be easier to tip the scales.
538 did an analysis on this and concluded that the number of people motivated enough to do this aren't really statistically meaningful.
The article mentions Ohio. Notably there, when requesting to vote on a specific day you are asked if you want a ballot for a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent (issues only) ballot. What...
Wait, can you not vote freely among all available options?
Can you register towards more than one available party to keep your options open at election days?
The article mentions Ohio. Notably there, when requesting to vote on a specific day you are asked if you want a ballot for a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent (issues only) ballot. What you request will determine your "political party" but how you vote is secret. This is only for certain elections so this only comes up periodically if you opt to vote every single time.
You are able to make a different decision each time you go to vote in one of those certain elections and I think it updates your "party" to match the last requested ballot type.
Regardless, the party is wanting to hold an "internal vote" to help decide how they want to proceed in a future election (meaning what candidate is going to be "their candidate" for that future election). They have government assistance in carrying out that vote (meaning that their questions are put on an official election ballot) but what they do with those results is up to them. While this may have a negative association where the government endorses certain political parties, this does keep the voting action inside that party as something more credible than if the party figured that out on their own.
Edit: forgot to mention that our political parties decide for themselves the order of their members on the lists, making it essentially a popularity contest among themselves. We vote for the...
Edit: forgot to mention that our political parties decide for themselves the order of their members on the lists, making it essentially a popularity contest among themselves.
We vote for the party, more than the individuals. There is both good and bad about that...
The American way of also having more input over who will represent the party seems like it has equally much good and bad about it, in practically the exact opposite ways that we have. Popular opinion can easily be swayed by irrelevant factors, but it also makes it more transparent to the public.
In Norway, parties decide for themselves who on the actually active members will be on the list for elections, with the leader of the local chapter as no 1 etc. Same as how they decide for themselves who will be their national leader, national second etc.
We vote for the party. Then the percentage of votes to each party in the final result is translated into how many seats on the local, county, and national level that means. Then those seats are filled from the top down from the respective lists.
We can affect the order of the member lists slightly: we may strike out individuals (literally just drawing a line over the name on the ballot). We may give 1 extra point to as many individuals we want (but only 1 per person). We may even write down the names of any other persons we want to give an extra point to. Irrespective of their political affiliation.
I've regularly given points to individuals that are from other parties than the one I am voting for, especially in the local elections. People that I personally know to be honest and true to their fellow humans and themselves. They'll easily change their stance on topics where new information leads to new conclusions, and conduct their debates in good faith.
I might not always agree with the majority of their party's program, but it's so, so important to have cooperative, honest, good people in charge.
In the US, you don't pay to be a member, you basically sign up with whatever party you want to be in. It's mostly just for deterimining which ballot you get for primary elections in closed primary...
In the US, you don't pay to be a member, you basically sign up with whatever party you want to be in. It's mostly just for deterimining which ballot you get for primary elections in closed primary states. The parties themselves make money by fundraising and asking for donations.
When you register to vote, you can check a box to indicate which party you'd like to join, if any. You can also change this at any time. The only real benefit to joining a party is the ability to...
When you register to vote, you can check a box to indicate which party you'd like to join, if any. You can also change this at any time. The only real benefit to joining a party is the ability to vote in that party's primary, where they choose the candidates for the general election.
Probably 1/3 of registered voters are unaffiliated with any party.
There are local political organizations run by any party large enough to support it, and those would generally have some kind of membership dues, but relatively few people are that involved.
Who you voted for is Private. Whether you voted in a particular election is Public in most (all?) jurisdictions in the US. Whether you are registered to vote (read. allowed to vote) is Public in...
But aren't votes anonymous in the US?
Who you voted for is Private.
Whether you voted in a particular election is Public in most (all?) jurisdictions in the US.
Whether you are registered to vote (read. allowed to vote) is Public in most (all?) jurisdictions in the United States, and it's often trivial to look up information from an individual's registration. To register, you must fill out a form which can have varying contents based on where you live. Most states include a question on their registration forms asking you to declare your affiliation with a political party, and responding to that question is often a pre-requisite to participating in some elections.
In addition to all the other, very helpful answers, this makes it much more understandable. Where I live, Norway, every person that holds citizenship and is 18 or older is automatically eligible...
In addition to all the other, very helpful answers, this makes it much more understandable.
Where I live, Norway, every person that holds citizenship and is 18 or older is automatically eligible for voting.
We usually have 10-20 parties that are eligible for votes at both local and national elections. All party ballots, plus a blank one, are available in the voting booths and you choose freely from them.
Voter validation is only done to prevent multiple votes per person, and the data is never stored for later use.
So interesting how different the seemingly somewhat similar end results are achieved.
There is a cutoff for party representation btw, so a total percentage of votes must be achieved to be a part of the seat allocation.
Also, there are 2-3 parties that always are way ahead of the rest and always have been. Not quite as divisive as the US or UK, though it seems were gravitating towards it.
I am very sure that you could have made some statistically significant findings regarding vaccinations and party affiliation here as well.
I would hope it didn't extend to deaths as we are only a few million people in total, and tend to have good health to begin with, on average.
Final voting is. However, primary voting is done by party affiliation. You register as a party supporter, and you receive the list of that parties candidates for positions. While those votes are...
Final voting is.
However, primary voting is done by party affiliation. You register as a party supporter, and you receive the list of that parties candidates for positions.
While those votes are anonymous, the party affiliation is not.
Oh, so the members of the political party which has for the last 40+ years built up a culture of anti-science, anti-education, sexism and xenophobia are dying off faster from a highly politicized...
Exemplary
Oh, so the members of the political party which has for the last 40+ years built up a culture of anti-science, anti-education, sexism and xenophobia are dying off faster from a highly politicized pandemic than members of the party who oppose that culture?
A lot of research is done just to put actual, hard numbers to what we assume is common sense. Or to figure out exactly what goes on that makes something the "obvious" answer. Every so often the...
A lot of research is done just to put actual, hard numbers to what we assume is common sense.
Or to figure out exactly what goes on that makes something the "obvious" answer.
Every so often the numbers disprove what was assumed to be a given, or the new understanding leads to breakthroughs in related sciences.
But mostly it just "actually proves" what we already know.
I remember many, many years ago a study was done that indicated that people in happy marriages experienced less stress. It was the source of much 'duh' eyerolling, but I remember realizing that...
I remember many, many years ago a study was done that indicated that people in happy marriages experienced less stress. It was the source of much 'duh' eyerolling, but I remember realizing that just because something is assumed to be true, doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up under scientific scrutiny. When it doesn't is when we all stare gobsmacked because reality =/= our commonsense, but there's no way of knowing whether it's going to be a duh conclusion or a WTF conclusion in advance.
It says they studied over 500.000 deaths, and also that they broke down the deceaseds' political affiliations. That they found that once vaccines were available for everyone, there was a much higher mortality rate among those affiliated with one particular political party. That it was similar mortality rates up until vaccination was freely available.
I am not from the US, so forgive me if I am getting stuck on the entirely wrong thing here...
But aren't votes anonymous in the US?
How would they know the actual political leanings of half a million deceased people?
Okay... Forgive my ignorance, but is actual membership in political parties very common in America?
Where I live, very few people maintain active, paid memberships in any political party outside of being active in the local politics themselves.
In the US we don't need to pay membership fees or anything to be considered an active member of a political party. We basically choose a party when we register for a Driver's License and are considered a member of that party unless we later change parties or register as unaffiliated with a party.
But why? Does it make a practical difference in any way?
This is so intriguing to me, I've never known that Americans do this.
Another user answered here that you receive ballots to vote with based on this affiliation, of I am understanding it correctly.
What do you do if you want to vote for another party? Can you give individual persons a vote regardless of that politicians party membership?
Or is it locked to the party you register with in advance?
It really only matters for primaries (as another user mentioned). Depending on the state, you can have open or closed primaries. In an open primary, everyone gets to vote for candidates in both parties. In a closed primary, only Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries and only Republicans can vote in Republican primaries. People who are registered as Independent/unaffiliated/other 3rd party cannot vote in these at all, which is why many people who are otherwise independent voters will register with one of the two major parties: they want a say in who gets nominated.
For every other election, your party affiliation doesn't matter all that much. You can be a Democrat and vote for Republicans and vice versa.
To my understanding, you can only do that in a top-two primary (California, Washington, Nebraska) or jungle primary (Louisiana). Most, if not all, open primaries let you pick one or the other, but not both.
Oh my bad, thanks for the correction!
Also not from the US; wouldn't such a system be open to a coordinated/organized effort by bad actors?
We have 50 different states that handle things 50 different ways, so take any answer with that in mind.
On the actual election day, I can go in and press one button to vote Republican down the line, another button to vote Democrat down the line, and a third button to initiate the "one by one" voting. If I pick one of the first two options, I get a few questions at the end in the case that there are no runners of that party, or potentially multiple runners in that party.
Primaries are different. Those are just the political parties deciding who they want to run in the real elections.
As DeaconBlue stated, 50 states (plus DC/territories which gets more complicated), 50 different ways.
I'm in Texas, we have a Primary election and a General election. The Primary election is where you vote to decide the candidates for each party. The General election is where you vote for those candidates for the actual position. Our Primaries are "open" meaning anyone can vote in any Primary for a candidate (but cannot vote in both party's Primaries) without any official political affiliation.
This leads to claims that left wing people vote in right wing primaries to tip the scales toward a candidate less likely to win and vice versa.
There are different rules in each state as to how much of the records are public/available. In Texas I can request data on everyone that voted in a particular election (Primary or General), which will give me their name, voter ID, address, etc. but not who they voted for. That still makes it easy to find out party affiliation by requesting Primary voter rolls and cross referencing it with a list of COVID deaths.
The US has a soft party system. The parties themselves don't really matter, everything is based off the individual candidates and their personal networks and influence. The parties exist for the purposes of brand loyalty and fundraising/volunteer lists and little else. Your party affiliation doesn't affect your general election vote in any way. All it affects is who ends up sending you more mail and spam phone calls.
Party registration's effects vary from state to state. Each state manages elections on their own, so we have 50+ different party systems and election structures (states and territories). In most states you only vote in the primaries or caucus under the party you affiliate with. You register under that party so the election commission knows which primary ballot to send you or which caucuses you attend. The primaries/caucuses are where we determine the lists the party will run in the general election. Other states have "open primaries" where you pick which primary ballot you want to vote for and if you fill out both they invalidate your vote. Still other states have "jungle primaries" where you vote for whomever and the top two go to the general election regardless of party ID.
Basically, unlike the parliamentary systems most other countries have, our parties build ruling coalitions ex ante, through the primary systems. Parliamentary systems build their coalitions ex post. That means you have parties and you have elections where people vote for parties and then those parties decide how to pool their seats to form a governing coalition (or one party gets a majority and can govern on its own).
Our system has people select the party lists up front on a per district basis. Then in the general election the overall strength of each party carries in to determine who wins in the general. Instead of multiple parties that contest the general elections, we have multiple factions within the two major parties. (We have third parties but they're universally jokes filled with grifters and cranks.) Whichever gets a majority we have already selected the seats and determined what the ideological composition of the ruling government will be ahead of the time. So a Mitt Romney led Republican party and a Donald Trump led Republican party indicate very different party lists under them. But the parties are never that strong, so nobody really has the power to "whip" votes the way they do in parliamentary systems. Individual legislators can wield enormous power if they have their own funding for their own reelection campaigns or are indifferent to reelection.
Yes they are. They’re not trying to prevent anything they’re trying to soak up campaign donations by running doomed Presidential campaigns where they pander to disaffected voters without any obligation to make promises that are concrete or realistic because they know they’ll never have to be held to account for any of it.
They do this instead of directing money and energy towards places that can actually move policy because it’s more lucrative to grandstand and collect donations and fundraise than it is to do policy research or advocacy work. This generates a feedback loop in which the party becomes ever more focused on grandstanding and fundraising without ever needing to cultivate the skills to execute on policy or actually win elections, the actual functions of a political party.
There’s a reason the international Green Party stopped affiliating with the American Green Party. The original US Greens were an advocacy and activist group that sometimes contested elections where they saw opportunity to win or shift the policy debate. The modern Greens split from the initial party and exists solely to run vanity presidential campaigns featuring shameless cranks.
If the green party wanted to make changes they need to push candidates at the local level, by only running in federal elections they are siphoning away votes from candidates who more closely align with them and at least acknowledge the issues. It's not like they can say if they don't win my votes go to this person.
If we weren't first past the post voting I could see your point but we are set up the way we are so the green party and libertarian parties are spoiler
I have not in any of my elections had a green party candidate I could vote for besides presidential. Maybe they run locally by you but that is not true by me and I live in a very purple state.
A large part of it is to allow you to vote in a primary. In closed primary states you need to be registered with that party to have a say in who represents them. Semi-closed primary states also allow unaffiliated voters to participate.
Wait, can you not vote freely among all available options?
Can you register towards more than one available party to keep your options open at election days?
The primary is where you select a candidate amongst your party and it happens before the general election. That's where you might have the Democrats choose between Biden or Bernie Sanders and those intra-party debates help get an idea of what the values/positions of people likely to vote Democrat are.
After that you have the election where Biden competes with Trump and there is another shift of platform to try to appeal to the country at large while trying to keep promises/positions made in the primary. Day-of the election you can vote for whoever you want, no matter what.
A good number of states have open primaries which wouldn't require you be a registered Democrat to vote in the Democratic primary, but an issue you could run into is having Republicans (or anti-Democrats) participating in the primary to try to push a less electable or less representative candidate. Some people have explicitly switched party to do that, and since primaries have less voters participating in them it can be easier to tip the scales.
538 did an analysis on this and concluded that the number of people motivated enough to do this aren't really statistically meaningful.
The article mentions Ohio. Notably there, when requesting to vote on a specific day you are asked if you want a ballot for a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent (issues only) ballot. What you request will determine your "political party" but how you vote is secret. This is only for certain elections so this only comes up periodically if you opt to vote every single time.
You are able to make a different decision each time you go to vote in one of those certain elections and I think it updates your "party" to match the last requested ballot type.
Regardless, the party is wanting to hold an "internal vote" to help decide how they want to proceed in a future election (meaning what candidate is going to be "their candidate" for that future election). They have government assistance in carrying out that vote (meaning that their questions are put on an official election ballot) but what they do with those results is up to them. While this may have a negative association where the government endorses certain political parties, this does keep the voting action inside that party as something more credible than if the party figured that out on their own.
Edit: forgot to mention that our political parties decide for themselves the order of their members on the lists, making it essentially a popularity contest among themselves.
We vote for the party, more than the individuals. There is both good and bad about that...
The American way of also having more input over who will represent the party seems like it has equally much good and bad about it, in practically the exact opposite ways that we have. Popular opinion can easily be swayed by irrelevant factors, but it also makes it more transparent to the public.
In Norway, parties decide for themselves who on the actually active members will be on the list for elections, with the leader of the local chapter as no 1 etc. Same as how they decide for themselves who will be their national leader, national second etc.
We vote for the party. Then the percentage of votes to each party in the final result is translated into how many seats on the local, county, and national level that means. Then those seats are filled from the top down from the respective lists.
We can affect the order of the member lists slightly: we may strike out individuals (literally just drawing a line over the name on the ballot). We may give 1 extra point to as many individuals we want (but only 1 per person). We may even write down the names of any other persons we want to give an extra point to. Irrespective of their political affiliation.
I've regularly given points to individuals that are from other parties than the one I am voting for, especially in the local elections. People that I personally know to be honest and true to their fellow humans and themselves. They'll easily change their stance on topics where new information leads to new conclusions, and conduct their debates in good faith.
I might not always agree with the majority of their party's program, but it's so, so important to have cooperative, honest, good people in charge.
In the US, you don't pay to be a member, you basically sign up with whatever party you want to be in. It's mostly just for deterimining which ballot you get for primary elections in closed primary states. The parties themselves make money by fundraising and asking for donations.
When you register to vote, you can check a box to indicate which party you'd like to join, if any. You can also change this at any time. The only real benefit to joining a party is the ability to vote in that party's primary, where they choose the candidates for the general election.
Probably 1/3 of registered voters are unaffiliated with any party.
There are local political organizations run by any party large enough to support it, and those would generally have some kind of membership dues, but relatively few people are that involved.
Who you voted for is Private.
Whether you voted in a particular election is Public in most (all?) jurisdictions in the US.
Whether you are registered to vote (read. allowed to vote) is Public in most (all?) jurisdictions in the United States, and it's often trivial to look up information from an individual's registration. To register, you must fill out a form which can have varying contents based on where you live. Most states include a question on their registration forms asking you to declare your affiliation with a political party, and responding to that question is often a pre-requisite to participating in some elections.
In addition to all the other, very helpful answers, this makes it much more understandable.
Where I live, Norway, every person that holds citizenship and is 18 or older is automatically eligible for voting.
We usually have 10-20 parties that are eligible for votes at both local and national elections. All party ballots, plus a blank one, are available in the voting booths and you choose freely from them.
Voter validation is only done to prevent multiple votes per person, and the data is never stored for later use.
So interesting how different the seemingly somewhat similar end results are achieved.
There is a cutoff for party representation btw, so a total percentage of votes must be achieved to be a part of the seat allocation.
Also, there are 2-3 parties that always are way ahead of the rest and always have been. Not quite as divisive as the US or UK, though it seems were gravitating towards it.
I am very sure that you could have made some statistically significant findings regarding vaccinations and party affiliation here as well.
I would hope it didn't extend to deaths as we are only a few million people in total, and tend to have good health to begin with, on average.
Final voting is.
However, primary voting is done by party affiliation. You register as a party supporter, and you receive the list of that parties candidates for positions.
While those votes are anonymous, the party affiliation is not.
Oh, so the members of the political party which has for the last 40+ years built up a culture of anti-science, anti-education, sexism and xenophobia are dying off faster from a highly politicized pandemic than members of the party who oppose that culture?
Color me surprised. /s
A lot of research is done just to put actual, hard numbers to what we assume is common sense.
Or to figure out exactly what goes on that makes something the "obvious" answer.
Every so often the numbers disprove what was assumed to be a given, or the new understanding leads to breakthroughs in related sciences.
But mostly it just "actually proves" what we already know.
Oh I'm aware. It's a good thing this kind of thing is done. It gives the idiots one less potential out.
I remember many, many years ago a study was done that indicated that people in happy marriages experienced less stress. It was the source of much 'duh' eyerolling, but I remember realizing that just because something is assumed to be true, doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up under scientific scrutiny. When it doesn't is when we all stare gobsmacked because reality =/= our commonsense, but there's no way of knowing whether it's going to be a duh conclusion or a WTF conclusion in advance.