Mitt Romney Was A Democrat [View all]

[n2doc]

Posted Feb 3, 2012 7:38am EST

Mitt Romney's 1992 Democratic Primary vote for Paul Tsongas -- a technocratic modernizer and reformer, but very much a Democrat -- raised some Republican eyebrows last week.

What hasn't been mentioned: Romney's vote formally enrolled him in the Democratic Party.

Romney registered to vote in 1976 as what Massachusetts authorities now call an "unenrolled" voter -- a member of neither party. Under state law, primaries are open, and unenrolled citizens may participate in either primary.

But under the law as it stood in 1992 -- it was changed in 2004 -- "essentially enrolled unenrolled voters (commonly referred to as independent) into the political party based on the ballot they chose at the presidential primary," Michelle Tassinari, the director of the elections division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office, told BuzzFeed.

"After voting, a voter would have had to 'unenroll' by completing additional paperwork to go back to their 'independent' status," she said.

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http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/mitt-romney-was-a-democrat