Only registered Democrats or Republicans are permitted to cast ballots in the state’s presidential primary on Feb. 5, 2008.
“The national parties want only registered members of the party to cast votes in a presidential primary,” said Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne. “The fact that eligibility is different for this one election every four years may be confusing to voters.”
She explained that in other primary elections in the state, non-affiliated voters may go to the polls and request a ballot for one of the three officially recognized parties (Democrat, Libertarian or Republican), but “to cast a vote in the presidential primary, you must be a registered member of a party.”
Numbers of non-affiliated voters are at an all-time high. More than 28 percent of all persons registered to vote are not members of one of the three recognized parties. Osborne said some people who used to be a Democrat or Republican have re-registered as an independent but now may still want to have a voice in a party’s presidential primary.
“If they want to have a say in a party’s nominee for president, they’re going to have to re-register as a member of that party,” Osborne said.
Re-registering is a simple process: Voters can go online to Service Arizona (www.ServiceArizona.com) or to the county recorder’s Web site (in Maricopa County, it’s www.recorder.maricopa.gov). People should download the form, fill it out and mail it in. People can also call their county recorder.
Registration for the presidential primary closes at midnight on Jan 7. Osborne said voters who want to regain the flexibility to vote in any party’s state primary Sept. 2 will need to re-register again after the Feb 5 presidential primary and before August 4.