YORK COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Hundreds of York County Republican voters filed through a Courtyard Rock Hill conference room to re-register their names in the party roll.
While it may seem like a routine procedure, they’re gearing up to support the push for closed primaries in South Carolina. York County Senator Wes Climer recently introduced legislation for it in the Senate.
“A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with the chairman of the York Republican party, the chairman of South Carolina Republican party. And they both identified this as a core priority for a lot of their members. And government ought to be responsive to the wishes of the people,” said Republican Senator Wes Climer.
Lancaster County Representative Brandon Newton introduced similar legislation in the house. Open primaries are open to all voters, regardless of their political party affiliation. Voters in states with closed primaries must register with a political party before voting in the party’s primary.
Independent and unaffiliated voters are not able to vote in closed primaries.
“I feel that people should vote for the people who are going to do the right thing and actually do what they’re supposed to,” said Republican voter Melissa Stewart.
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A small GOP group around Greenville called “America First Movement” was pushing the idea from county to county to abolish Republican primaries altogether, allowing the group to have the final say in candidates for local and state offices.
Something York County representative Brandon Guffey was not in support of.
“It’s trying to say that ‘oh, we don’t have conservative enough legislators in office.” Essentially what they’re saying is the local party is saying if y’all don’t do what we tell you to do, then we’re going to get you out of office,” Guffey said.
Local GOP chair Larry Barnett says that’s not the case in York County. He wants candidates and voters to match their party affiliation. Barnett says they’ve been trying to do this for 20 years, but even with an overwhelming majority in support, it fails to pass.
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“We proposed as an option to primaries. Perhaps we should consider going to a convention or a caucus-type system that our constitution allows us to do that if we so choose. It does not cut out people. It’s just a different way of us selecting our republican candidates,” Barnett said.
It’s possible to switch the process in the state. South Carolina law says 3/4 of the delegates at a party convention would need to agree to transition from open to closed primaries.
“We don’t need to be so insular that we only have one set of ideas, or we have a commonality, but you don’t want to exclude people. And so I think ultimately legislatively we will work to close the primary, but I think we need to continue to have primaries,” Pope said.
The county Republican convention will be on April 12.
