There’s a persistent piece of misinformation floating around about tomorrows NC Democratic primary. I have repeatedly seen the claim that NC has a closed primary. We do not. We have a ‘hybrid’ primary, where unaffiliated voters may choose which ballot to request. Per the NC State Board of Elections:
There are three recognized political parties in North Carolina: Democratic, Republican and Libertarian. Voter registration applicants may choose one of these political parties when completing a voter registration application, or they may choose not to register with a political party affiliation. In this case, the voter’s party affiliation will be designated as Unaffiliated. North Carolina has a semi-closed primary system. In a partisan primary, voters who are affiliated with a political party may only vote the partisan ballot for the party for which they are affiliated; they are closed from voting in another party’s primary. Unaffiliated voters may vote in any one recognized party’s primary.
Also, at least during the early voting period, it was possible to change your party affiliation at the polling place, although I have not been able to find any information on whether or not this is still the case on the 15th. (If someone in the comments can comment, I’ll add it in an update.)
Sorry for the short diary, but I really hate seeing misinformation repeated ad nauseum, especially about something as important as voting.
Update: The BoE website is pretty confusing, but it looks like you cannot change your affiliation on the 15th.