North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature passed an elections bill last week — but added to it a provision prohibiting political parties from closing their primary elections to unaffiliated voters.
SB 747 stipulates that “Unaffiliated voters shall be allowed to vote in one primary of the voter’s choosing.” While North Carolina law currently only guarantees participation in a party’s primary elections to voters registered with that party, it also gives parties the ability to determine whether unaffiliated voters can cast a ballot in their primaries. SB 747, however, would take that authority away from political parties and guarantee unaffiliated voters access to party elections, effectively eliminating the option of closed primaries in the state.
Following the bill’s introduction earlier this year, the Senate gutted the original version of SB 747 that included numerous policies enhancing the integrity of North Carolina’s elections. This prompted House Republicans to rework the bill and include many of these previously removed provisions — as well as the new line eliminating closed primaries — in their version, which passed the House and Senate on Aug. 16 and is now awaiting action from Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper.
While the finalized version of SB 747 appears to be an improvement from the Senate substitute, the provision eliminating closed primaries has generated criticisms from election integrity advocates, who say forcing North Carolina’s primaries to include unaffiliated voters could artificially benefit centrist candidates. While speaking with The Federalist, Jim Womack, the president of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, detailed how
