The N.C. Republican Party has rejected a proposal to ban unaffiliated voters from participating in its primaries.
Meeting over the weekend in Raleigh, the party's Executive Committee voted by a wide margin to reject a plan to bar independents.
Among those strongly opposing the effort were the leaders of the state Republican legislative caucus who noted that polling shows that most unaffiliated voters regard themselves as either conservative (38 percent) or moderate (37 percent), Rob Christensen reports.
"For a Republican candidate to win an election in North Carolina," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the committee, "the candidate must build a coalition with unaffiliated voters. Barring unaffiliated voters from participating in Republican primaries will make building that coalition more difficult."
House GOP leader Paul Stam of Apex estimated that the committee rejected the the measure by a 4-1 vote.
The proposal was intended to ensure candidates emerging from primaries are truly conservative since they would only have to appeal to those registered as Republicans.
Comments
Re: GOP wants unaffiliated voters
November 24, 2009 - 8:09am — GiggleBoxEVEN Tom Fetzer?
Giggle.
Re: GOP wants unaffiliated voters
November 23, 2009 - 9:24pm — mjinchapelhillI would say that the vote was more like 5-1 to keep primaries open. A very small minority was in favor of the resolution. I was disappointed that the N&O print edition ignored the vote in both Sunday and today's edition, only publishing Christensen's column that was obviously written last week before the vote was taken, and was irrelevant after the vote.
Re: GOP wants unaffiliated voters
November 23, 2009 - 1:53pm — kttechwriterFor the full story, check out Katy's Conservative Corner, North Carolina Politics from a Conservative Perspective. Many details are left out in this report. Cut and paste the following link into your browser:
http://katysconservativecorner.typepad.com/katy/2009/11/resolution-to-close-gop-primaries-.html
The News and Observer wasn't even there to cover the meeting, which was open to the public and even voted down the opportunity to go into closed session. Rob Christensen would have been most welcome at THIS GOP meeting! :-)
Even GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer sent out a letter to Executive Committee members, in advance of the meeting, urging them to vote down the resolution. He stated that Republicans need the unaffiliated voters, now more than ever and he is exactly right.