This has always struck me as one of the many bizarre consequences and antics of the U.S. electoral system. Why would you register your party affiliation in a (presumably) secret ballot? Doesn’t that fly directly in the face of the principle of the ballot being secret, making people’s political leanings more or less a public secret? Why would the public have any say at all in which candidate a particular political party elects as a candidate? Wouldn’t it be more logical to leave it up the the actual card-carrying party members? And as you point out, the current U.S. system seems vulnerable to organized campaigns of outright manipulation, even fraud.
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