New Law Maintains Independent Status Of Unaffiliated Voters After Primary Vote

Although there was plenty of bad news for Charlestown’s environment in new laws passed by the Rhode Island Legislature in 2024, there was good news for the 47% of RI voters who are unaffiliated.

Legislation (H7662), which was passed by both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by the Governor on June 25, allows unaffiliated party voters to vote in either party’s primary without becoming affiliated to a party. Their affiliation on the voter rolls will stay “Unaffiliated.”

Rhode Island has open primaries, and if you are unaffiliated, you have been able to vote in either the Republican or Democrat primary, but, in so doing, you changed your affiliation to the party whose primary you voted in.

In Rhode Island, where statewide offices are dominated by Democrats, the real race and choice often happens in the primaries. For example, in the 2022 primary race for Governor, there were five Democrats, including Dan McKee, who won, and Helena Folks and Nellie Gorbea, who both received large percentages of the vote. Only about 135,000 Rhode Island registered voters participated in the 2022 primary for both party races combined. There perhaps would have been a higher turnout, and maybe a different RI Governor had voters who wanted to remain “unaffiliated” not had to go through the process to disaffiliate.

As an unaffiliated voter I did vote in the 2022 Democrat primary and either failed to disaffiliate after the vote or my disaffiliation form failed to go through for some reason. Whatever the reason, I was surprised to discover a “D” next to my name on the current voter rolls. I will have to request to disaffiliate to get back to my original unaffiliated status, but with the new law, unaffiliated voters will never have to make that request again.

If you are an independent voter who is now affiliated with a party because of a past vote in a primary election, you can go to the Secretary of State’s website at https://vote.sos.ri.gov/Voter/UpdateYourVoterRecord or to Town Hall to fill out a disaffiliation form. Once you do that you will have the ability to vote in any party’s primary and still retain your unaffiliated status on the voter rolls.

You can learn more about the author, Ruth Platner, a candidate for Charlestown Town Council, on her profile page.