Primary elections determine who will represent a political party in a general election. The primary process operates like a general election with the exception that in some states, some political parties have “closed” primaries, which means only registered members of that party can vote in their primary. In New York, for example, only registered Democrats can vote Democratic primaries and only registered Republicans can vote in Republican primaries. In some states primaries are “open” to registered voters regardless of party affiliation. Ballotpedia has a nice list of primary types by state.
There are arguments for and against closed primaries. One argument against closed primaries is that they have the potential to disenfranchise voters in locations where registered voters from one political party vastly outnumber registered voters from other parties (and voters with no party affiliation). For example, I live in the City of Mount Vernon, NY where the overwhelming majority of registered voters are Democrats. This means that the Democratic primaries, in which only registered Democrats are allowed to vote, almost certainly determine who will win the general election to represent all citizens. In other words, voters who are not registered Democrats have no say about who is elected to represent them because they aren’t allowed to vote in the Democratic primaries. Therefore, in the City of Mount Vernon, it can be argued that voters who are not registered democrats are disenfranchised. I spent my entire adult life without a political party affiliation, but when I moved to Mount Vernon I registered as a Democrat because I felt that was the only way my vote would have any meaning. I registered for a political party to avoid being disenfranchised. That doesn’t seem right. [NOTE: on 11-25-22 I changed my political party affiliation back to “unaffiliated”.]
In addition, when one political party dominates that party controls all aspects of the electoral process, which means political power is consolidated in the hands of a few “party bosses”. That can’t be good for democracy.
If a 2 party system is bad, a 1 party system is far worse.
At mycandidatescorecard.org everything is open and voters can and should rate candidates from all parties.
If we want elected officials to put the interests of the voters before their loyalty to a political party (People before Party), we must be willing to do that too.
So if you are a registered Democrat, please give an honest assessment of candidates running in Republican primaries. And if you are a registered Republican, please give an honest assessment of candidates running in Democratic primaries.