ACLU seeks role in lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s open primary system

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina is pushing back against a lawsuit filed by the South Carolina Republican Party that seeks to close the state’s Republican primaries to all but registered Republicans.

The ACLU, along with several other organizations, have filed a motion to intervene in the case, arguing that closing the primaries would exclude independent voters from a key part of South Carolina’s election process and undermine the state’s long-standing open primary system.

The South Carolina Republican Party filed the lawsuit last month, contending that current state law unconstitutionally requires the party to allow voters who are not Republicans to participate in GOP primaries.

“Current state law forces us to participate and open the door to people that might not agree with us, to Democrats and to folks who might support other candidates in the general election, and that’s unconstitutional,” South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick said last month.

The ACLU argues that because state and county election officials administer South Carolina’s primaries using taxpayer funds, political parties should not be able to exclude eligible voters from the process.

“When it chooses to have the state administer an election at no cost to the party, it doesn’t get to exclude voters from that process,” said Allen Chaney, legal director for the ACLU of South Carolina.

Supporters of open primaries say the stakes are especially high in South Carolina, where Republican candidates often go on to win statewide elections after securing their party’s nomination.

Veterans for All Voters, one of the groups supporting the ACLU’s effort, argues that closing primaries would disenfranchise many independent voters, including military veterans.

Retired Army Col. Christopher Himsl, who leads the state organization, said many veterans return from service without allegiance to a political party and should not have to register with one to participate in primary elections.

“Most military veterans are independent. They don’t have an allegiance to a party. They have an allegiance to veterans, to their communities and to the Constitution,” Himsl said.

Himsl also said restricting primary participation could worsen political polarization.

“We’re better than our politics, and there’s more that unites us than divides us, and we need to have an election system that reflects our values,” he said.

No federal court timeline has been set for ruling on the ACLU’s motion to intervene or on the Republican Party’s lawsuit.

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