VRM | Party Affiliation
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Currently, thirty states and the District of Columbia actively track a voter’s affiliation with a political party. Voters have the option to declare an affiliation when they register to vote, by checking a box or writing in a party name on their voter registration form. In a system where, instead of filling out a form on their own, voters are automatically registered to vote, what should states do about party affiliation?
The analysis here sets out the different ways states currently track party affiliation, and then discusses the different ways states could adapt their party affiliation systems to function in an automatic system. Two appendices discuss the constitutional constraints on states’ choices about party affiliation and political primaries and detail how the states track party affiliation and what primary systems they use.
Affiliations in the States | Purpose of Tracking Affiliation
Policy Proposal | Conclusion
Party Affiliation in the States
The rules surrounding party affiliation and primary voting are different in each state.
Primary elections generally fall into five categories:
- "Open primaries," where all voters, regardless of party affiliation, are entitled to vote in a party primary;
- "Closed primaries," where voters must be formally affiliated with a particular party in order to vote in that party's primary;
- "Semi-closed primaries," where unaffiliated voters may vote in a party primary without affiliating with a party, but affiliated voters can only vote in their party's primary;
- "Facially closed primaries," where voters are required by law to be affiliated in some way with a party in order to vote in its primary but their affiliation is not tracked by the state; and
- "Blanket primaries," where each voter can choose among all candidates for a particular office, regardless of the voter's affiliation or the candidate's designation.[1]
Closed and semi-closed primaries are the only primaries that require a state to track party affiliation.
There are four relevant categories of combinations of party affiliation rules and primary participation rules.
1. States That Do Not Track Party Affiliation
In the first category are the twenty states that do not currently track party affiliation. Fourteen of these states hold open primaries.[2] Five of the twenty instead hold facially closed primaries, but the rules "closing" the primaries are difficult to enforce and voters are rarely, if ever, prevented from voting in the primary of their choice.[3] And one state, Washington, holds a nonpartisan blanket primary.
2. States That Track Party Affiliation But Allow Unaffiliated Voters to Participate in Primary Elections on Election Day
In the second category are fourteen states that track party affiliation, but nonetheless allow unaffiliated voters to opt to vote in a partisan primary on the day of the election, at the polls. There are three kinds of states in this category: those with open primaries;[4] those with "semi-closed" primaries, where unaffiliated voters can choose to vote in a particular party's primary without affiliating with that party;[5] and states with closed primaries that allow unaffiliated voters to affiliate with a party on the day of the primary.[6]
3. States That Require Advance Affiliation as a Condition of Participating in Primary Elections
In the third category are thirteen states (and the District of Columbia) that have closed primaries with an advance affiliation or enrollment deadline that applies to all voters.[7] Seven of these states and the District of Columbia have a party affiliation deadline identical to the voter registration deadline;[8] one state has an affiliation deadline in advance of the registration deadline for affiliated voters only;[9] and five states have affiliation deadlines in advance of the registration deadline for all voters, ranging from eight weeks before a primary election to a full eleven months.[10]
In the second and third categories, many states offer the political parties a choice to open or close their primaries, or to open their primaries to unaffiliated votes only. Indeed, as discussed below, political parties have a right under the Constitution to open their primaries to unaffiliated voters. At least ten states in these categories offer political parties an explicit, statutorily mandated choice in opening or closing their primaries to at least unaffiliated voters.[11] States are classified in this memo as closed or semi-closed unless all parties that hold a primary have opened that primary. The numbers of states in category 2 and category 3 could thus fluctuate from election to election based on the choices made by political parties in each state.
4. States With Mixed Primary Rules
Finally, there are three states with mixed primary rules. In Arizona, presidential primaries are closed, but other primaries are semi-closed. In Nebraska, party affiliation is tracked; Congressional primaries are open; the state legislature is elected on a nonpartisan basis; and all other primaries are closed. In Louisiana, party affiliation is tracked; all federal office primaries are closed, but can be opened to independent voters at the discretion of the parties; for state offices, the state uses the "top two" nonpartisan blanket primary.
All of these rules are laid out in detail in chart format in Appendix B.
Purposes of Tracking Party Affiliation
Broadly speaking, tracking voters' party affiliation serves two purposes: (1) determining whether voters may participate in party nominee selection processes, most importantly by voting in a particular party's primary election, and (2) providing an easy means for political parties and other groups to interact with voters who are registered with a particular party.[12] In a system of automatic voter registration, the challenge is to gather party affiliations in a way that serves both purposes well enough to satisfy all stakeholders in the current system.
With respect to the first purpose, determining participation in primary elections, the twenty states that do not track party affiliation, and the fourteen states that allow unaffiliated voters the opportunity to choose to participate in a partisan primary on the day of the election, automatic voter registration presents little to no additional difficulty. For the twenty states without party affiliation, there is no additional difficulty. For the fourteen states that allow voting by unaffiliated voters, while those voters will be registered without a party affiliation in significantly greater numbers than under the present system, unaffiliated voters can choose to affiliate with a party or vote in a primary on the day of the election, and will not be shut out of the primary process.
However, for the thirteen states that have closed primaries with advance affiliation deadlines and for selected primaries in the three states with mixed systems, voters who are registered automatically without a chance to affiliate with a party will be unable to participate in partisan primaries. A system of automatic registration would therefore have to include some mechanism by which voters in these states could affiliate with political parties in order to participate in primary elections. There are two basic mechanisms that would make this possible: allowing unaffiliated voters to participate in primary elections on Election Day, or putting in place some system to ask new registrants for their party affiliations. However, some state parties (or, often, particular factions in state parties) prefer longer affiliation deadlines and closed primaries as a way to limit participation by voters who may not be committed to the party. It may not be politically feasible in some states to shorten the affiliation deadline.
The second purpose, gathering information on the party affiliation of new voters, is equally relevant for all of the thirty states (and the District of Columbia) that track party affiliation information. Parties, candidates, and other entities that work to educate, engage, or mobilize voters use this information to identify voters by party affiliation. While parties and candidates in particular may have access to more sophisticated information on voters' partisan leanings than their party affiliation, there may very well be states in which this purpose is considered particularly important. An automatic registration system should be able to make some provision to gather affiliation information in advance of an election.
Policy Proposal
Ideally, a state that implements automatic registration could allow unaffiliated voters to participate in a primary election on Election Day, whether by affiliating with a party that day or by allowing unaffiliated voters to vote in primary elections, and also provide voters who are automatically registered without party affiliation notice and opportunity to affiliate with a party, by postage paid return postcard, which could be combined with other mailings. These two methods in conjunction provide the most assurance that voters will be able to participate in party primaries and that voters will be identified as party members as early as possible. In most states, both of these methods should be easy to implement. However, method (a) requires eliminating affiliation deadlines for unaffiliated voters, which may present difficulty as discussed above; method (b) may impose small additional administrative costs on states. A state may therefore choose to use only one of these methods in particular circumstances.
Conclusion
Ultimately, party affiliation or enrollment presents a much less significant difficulty for an automatic registration system than may seem on first glance. Thirty-four states currently have affiliation systems that would require no change in a system of automatic registration. And the sixteen states (and the District of Columbia) that would require some change can choose one or both of two simple solutions to ensure voters are able to effectively affiliate with political parties. The current system of party affiliation in the states presents no bar to a system of automatic voter registration.
[1] Blanket primaries can be partisan (where the top vote-getter from each party advances to the general election) or nonpartisan (where the top two vote-getters in the race, regardless of party, advance to the general election). A state cannot impose a blanket partisan primary on a party under California Democratic Party v. Jones, but can offer political parties the option.
[2] Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
[3] Tennessee, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Additionally, South Carolina and Alabama offer parties the choice to close their primaries, but it is likely that "closed" primaries in these states would be similarly difficult to ensure.
[4] Currently only one state, Arkansas, both tracks party affiliation and has a completely open primary.
[5] Alaska, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts all have semi-closed primaries.
[6] Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Maine, Rhode Island, Utah, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.
[7] California, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Connecticut.
[8] California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Florida.
[9] Connecticut.
[10] Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, and Oklahoma.
[11] Arkansas, Oregon, South Dakota, Maryland, California, Connecticut, Maine, West Virginia, and North Carolina.
[12] Voters may also need to be formally registered with a political party to be that party's nominee for a particular office, or to participate in that party's organization or activities.