In many states, you have to give your affiliation to be able to vote in the primaries.

Because when you register, that registration document is public record. And it has what you declared. If you want to vote, you HAVE to do this step. No choice in that matter.

I walked in our election central and they gave it to me.

Isn't registering as an independent the equivalent of registering without party affiliation?

In some states "independent" is the name of a party. "Unaffiliated" is the correct term.

Or, registered and "unenrolled".

That's fine. Do you know what's still Public Record?

"GENDER","DOB","EMAIL","FIRST_NAME","MIDDLE_NAME","LAST_NAME","PhoneNumbers","FULL_ADDRESS","IDENTIFICATION_NUMBER","IDType"

if IDType is DLN, then IDENTIFICATION_NUMBER is your drivers license.

if IDTYPE is DOBSS, then its the month/day/year/last4 SSN

Frankly, this should not be public record. This would be a breach notification if it was a company doing it. But I walked in to election central, and they PLUGGED in my usb stick into their computers. I could have been a bad actor and had powershell or ironpython exploits - but i'm not that person.

USB stick for what?