2012.02.12
Point/Counterpoint: Voter registration
This week’s Point/Counterpoint question is: Should Virginia allow voters to register by political party affiliation?
Sen. Bill Stanley argues that his bill to allow party registration, which was defeated by the Senate this week, would have maximized participation and allowed parties to control their own primaries. Sen. Chap Petersen maintains that the current system is not broken.
Naming party preference would increase participation
Bill Stanley
Stanley, a Republican state senator from Franklin County, sponsored Senate Bill 62 in this year’s General Assembly.
There are more than 5 million registered voters in Virginia. None of them are Democrats or Republicans. There are no Libertarians or Greens, either. How could a swing state with millions of voters in a nation with elections that are fiercely contested by the major parties not have a single registered Democrat or Republican? The answer is simple: Virginia does not allow voters to self-identify by party.
You might think this prohibition encourages bipartisanship or achieves a kind of egalitarian ideal. But there is no evidence that our politics are more harmonious or less partisan than our neighbors’ in Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee or West Virginia, all of whom are allowed to register by party.
Current system works best for Virginians
Chap Petersen
Petersen is a Democratic state senator who represents Fairfax and part of Fairfax County and serves on the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee.
Some people today are obsessed with labels. They want to classify everything and everybody that they meet.
So it is with politics. This year, the Virginia General Assembly is considering Senate Bill62, patroned by my friend, Sen.Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, which seeks to introduce a new concept to Virginia: registration by political party.
