The Independent View: SC Open Primary Fight

Wayne Griffin, chair of the South Carolina Independence Party and Greer City Councilman, delivered a report on the SC open primary fight at the recent National Conference of Independents.

South Carolina currently allows all voters to vote in party primaries and do not have to designate a party preference during the registration process. This is called an open primary and it has become an increasingly controversial issue.

The Republican Party is suing the state to close the primaries. They want to force people to register into their party, and lock independents out. The suit asks U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs to either grant injunctive relief or deem open primaries unconstitutional because it violates the constitutional right to free association. The Election Commission will allow a party to select its nominees in a convention format that bypasses primaries, but the state requires that the convention must agree by a three-fourths majority. The state’s requirements, which are protected by the federal Voting Rights Act, help avoid voter disenfranchisement and a proliferation of fraudulent candidates.

A very diverse coalition has come together to keep the primaries open. To support the effort, we are asking SC voters willing to support keeping the primaries open to add their name to the following Letter to the Editor that we will send to local newspapers.

Letter to the Editor

We, the undersigned, are among the 38% of South Carolinians' who consider ourselves independent-minded voters. We support the continuation of South Carolina’s open primary system. For the last 46 years, since the end of Jim Crow laws, open primaries have allowed for all voters to participate equally in the process. Yet, the Republican Party has sued the state to lock independents out by closing the primaries. A broad coalition of forces including IndependentVoting.org, the SC Independence Party, the Progressive Network, the Columbia Tea Party, and 13 Democratic Party members of the State Legislative Black Caucus have come together to support the voting rights of independents and have intervened in the lawsuit. We call on all elected officials to speak out in support of SC’s current open primary system. All voters should have the opportunity to participate fully in every phase of our election process.

Independentvoting.org and the SC Independence Party are part of a national network of independents that are fighting for needed political reforms that put the concerns of voters above the partisan interests of the parties.

Last night, I was part of a phone bank asking SC voters to sign the letter.

If you are a SC voter, contact Nancy Ross to request to add your name to the letter.