Ivanka Trump Can’t Vote For Dad: Find Out Why
Ivanka Trump can’t vote for dad, Donald Trump, in the upcoming presidential election primary. Ivanka said on Tuesday in a CNN town hall meeting that she missed the registration deadline. According to Ivanka Trump, she’s always voted as an independent and didn’t know the rules for registering as a member of the GOP in New York.
Unfortunately, Ivanka missed the deadline to register by close to a year from this year’s presidential election primary. TPM shared on Wednesday that Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s 34-year-old daughter, learned that she had missed the deadline to register as a Republican voter one week after the deadline had already passed, which was six months ago. Ivanka Trump called New York’s voter registration rules onerous, oppressive, and difficult.
Ivanka went on to say in Tuesday night’s town hall that missing the deadline was actually a very interesting experience that ultimately inspired her to create videos explaining the process. Ivanka Trump, as well as her 32-year-old brother, Eric Trump, both missed the deadline to register as a member of the Grand Old Party (GOP), so neither will be able to vote for their father, Donald Trump, in next week’s primary for the presidential election.
Eric and Ivanka Trump miss the deadline to vote in NY GOP primary. "They feel very guilty." https://t.co/vuiDBIByS1 pic.twitter.com/tFbFF52fOh
— ABC News (@ABC) April 11, 2016
As an independent voter, Ivanka Trump says she usually votes for whoever she believes is the best candidate based on the issues, not the party. But, contrary to popular belief, any independent voter has to align themselves with one candidate prior to a closed primary, and that means registering as either a Democrat or a Republican. Each state has their own set of rules as to when an independent voter has to be registered.
Ivanka Trump obviously wasn’t familiar with New York’s registration rules because she missed the deadline. The Gothamist explains that New York voters have to be registered with a party before New York’s closed primary election that is coming up on April 19. But New York residents, regardless of which party they choose, had to be registered with that party by the end of 2015 to be eligible to vote in that party’s primary.
Donald Trump's children Ivanka and Eric are unable to vote for their dad in the #NYPrimary https://t.co/m8KymGXTBT pic.twitter.com/22T4QMq1E1
— CNN (@CNN) April 11, 2016
Independent voters who wanted to vote in New York’s primary election had to choose a party affiliation last October, which is the earliest registration date in the country and will exclude 27 percent of the voting population who missed the deadline. A bill that was introduced last month in the New York State Senate would allow all registered independent voters to vote, even if they missed the deadline to choose a party. But the bill’s sponsor, Independent Assemblyman Fred Thiele, says it’s a long shot that the bill will be passed before Tuesday’s closed primary election.
Donald Trump actually was the first to reveal that his kids had missed the deadline to register as a Republican. On Monday, Trump made a phone call to Fox News and said that Ivanka and Eric had a long time to register, but they didn’t register in time. On Tuesday night, Ivanka Trump sat down with her father at a special CNN Republican town hall and defended herself, saying she just didn’t know the registration rules for New York, even though she’s always been an independent, and she’s a New York native.
But Ivanka Trump isn’t embarrassed that she missed the registration deadline. Instead, Ivanka says she’s now educated on the process and is using her newly found knowledge to help educate other U.S. independent voters.
“It was actually why I started making a series of videos to educate people in each of the individual states because every state is different,” said Ivanka Trump.
Donald Trump himself, the leading GOP presidential candidate, admits that Ivanka and Eric Trump missing the registration deadline was a great educational process and probably even helped the campaign, even though his kids can’t vote for him in the closed primary.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons/Marc Nozell]
