@resserts When I registered in 2019, I had not chosen a party. When I attended my first town hall, one of the Council members asked if I was a Democrat. (I found it odd that she asked about a specific party - I later learned that my entire board is blue) I said I lean that way but I didn't pick a party. She let me know that I can't sign petitions or vote in the primaries unless I did. So I made sure to do so. I've left enough decisions (over 10 years worth of eligible ballots) up to others. So I plan to continue voting in all possible elections, primaries included. But I have heard that some will change parties to vote in a primary to try and get someone weak on the general ballot. So their chosen runner has a better chance. Honestly, I wish we could just choose any runner in the primary as well as the general.

@soulless I know some states operate like that, but parties are member organizations so I don't feel like I have a claim to choose who represents them if I'm not a member and don't share their ideologies. If I had party affiliation, I would vote for the candidate that I most wanted to represent my party — and I'd be quite perturbed if people from other political parties with differing values were picking members of my party. Imagine, for instance, that I were a member of the Green Party. GP membership is rather small compared to Democrat and Republican party affiliation, but if everyone were allowed to cast a vote in every primary then the candidate representing the GP would be selected more by the RP and DP members than by GP, which would defeat the purpose of having parties at all. The party with the largest membership would have de facto political power and would be able to steamroll grassroots movements (even more so than they already do). It would undermine the "representative" part of "representative democracy," I think.

As for signing petitions, that was actually a perk of ceasing political affiliation: nobody asks me to sign their petition to add their name to the ballot anymore (which I don't mind so much, except that most of the people who asked me were people I didn't actually support or didn't really know). More important, though, is the fact that (despite leaning rather firmly to the left of center) nobody can truly assume my vote. They have to work for it — at least statistically speaking.