We both pre-registered to vote recently. Our party? No party. We pre-registered as NPAs — no party affiliation — following in the footsteps of 3.7 million of other Floridians. As NPAs, we won’t be tied to any party. In short, we are not satisfied with either the Democratic and Republican parties and how they run the country. More and more young people like us — including young people of color — don’t want to join a political party either.
But in Florida, one can’t vote in state primaries without a major-party affiliation. In these elections, there are two primaries, Democratic and Republican, in which only members of those parties are allowed to vote. These closed primaries offer no opportunity for NPAs to cast a ballot. Instead, we must wait until the general election to vote.
By then, however, it’s often too late. Most elections in Florida are decided in the primaries. The general elections can be so uncompetitive, that many races are uncontested.