KVNUFTP

Senator Hillyard:

Bryant Howe forwarded your question on primary elections to me.

Your statement of the law is correct.  Voters registered as Republicans may vote for a Republican candidate in the primary election without any additional steps.

Unaffiliated voters (and they must be shown as unaffiliated on the voter rolls) may elect to register as a Republican at the polling place.  They will then be allowed to vote on the Republican ballot.  If they do not wish to affiliate, they will not be permitted to vote for the Republican candidates.

Voters who are registered as a Democrat or as a member of another party will not be allowed to change their affiliation at the polling place and thus won’t be allowed to vote for the Republican candidates.  If they wish to do vote for those candidates, they must change their party affiliation at least 30 days before the election, which is the voter registration deadline.  Note that, under recent changes to the election code, a person is permitted to register to vote, in person, at the office of the county clerk, up to 15 days before the date of the election and that person may declare affiliation with a political party at that time.  However, under 20A-2-107, a person is prohibited from changing his or her existing party affiliation during the 30 days before the primary election.  In other words, a person who is registering as a new voter in a precinct can presumably change or affiliate up to 15 days before the election when he or she f iles their new registration application, but a person who is already registered in a precinct and is only seeking to change his or her party affiliation status must make that change at least 30 days before the election.

Finally, FYI, the main section that permits unaffiliated voters to affiliate at the polling place on primary election days (20A-2-107.5) was in fact slated to be sunsetted next year.  However, this last session, it’s authorization was extended until 2013.

As of April 2007, 56.5% of Utah‘s voters were unaffiliated, 35.8% were registered Republicans, 7.6% were registered Democrats, and 0.1% were registered Constitution Party members.

A bit long winded, but I hope the information is helpful.  Please call or write if you have any questions.

Eric

Eric N. Weeks

Associate General Counsel, Government Operations and Retirement

Office of Legislative Research & General Counsel

Utah State Legislature