By Drew McKissick
The most important thing that a political party can do is choose candidates to represent them on the ballot who are likely to support that party’s agenda once elected to office. Why then, when carrying out that most important responsibility, should Republicans be forced to allow participation from those who oppose us?
Unfortunately, that’s exactly the case here in South Carolina. Voters are not allowed the freedom to choose a political party when they register to vote, and parties aren’t allowed to decide who picks their nominees or who qualifies to be their candidate.
The simple fact is that in America we’re entitled to Constitutional rights, and among those is the right of individuals, organizations and political parties to enjoy freedom of association.
For decades the South Carolina Republican Party has pushed for partisan voter registration in South Carolina in order to have more control over how our Party is required to nominate candidates for office.
Our State Party Platform supports it. Our State Executive Committee has passed at least three resolutions in favor of it over the past three years. As South Carolina Republican Party Chairman, I have put this question to Republican primary voters four times, (2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024), with an average of 82% support and more than 1.5 million favorable votes.
It’s past time to make a change, and House bill 3643 was written with generous input from our Party to do just that. It allows Republicans to keep Democrats out of our primaries — and lets Democrats keep Republicans out of theirs.
It gives voters the option to affiliate with a political party when they register to vote, or remain “unaffiliated” if they wish. When the primary elections come, only voters registered with that political party and unaffiliateds can vote in that primary, but once they do, they automatically become registered with that party. Going forward, they would need to change their partisan affiliation at least 45 days prior to participating in another party’s primary. This avoids an unnecessary drop in participation, while keeping hard core members of either party from “crashing” the other party. That’s fair.
When it comes to candidates, parties would only have to certify candidates that have 1) registered with that party and 2) have voted in two of the last three of that party’s statewide primaries, (demonstrating some actually loyalty to that party). Failing that, a party could decide to grant a waiver if they still want that candidate on their primary ballot. That’s also fair. And it avoids the trap that current law (and some competing legislation) puts parties in: having to certify a candidate to the ballot who clearly supports another party.
We actually had such an example in the 2018 primaries. An avid Bernie Sanders supporting Democrat filed to run in the Republican Primary for the 1st Congressional District. The law left us no recourse, but the SCGOP passed a unanimous resolution pointing out that current law makes a mockery of the nomination process with such requirements.
The facts are simple. Republicans have a right to freedom of association. That means the right to decide who we associate with to pick our candidates and to decide who should qualify to be our candidates. Period.
Current election law in South Carolina violates that freedom. And H3463 is the best shot we’ve ever had at fixing that problem.
Should this legislation fail, our State Committee has voted unanimously to file a federal lawsuit to compel the legislature to act.
I encourage all Republicans (and even Democrats) to reach out to your legislators and ask them to support it.
Drew McKissick is the Chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party.
