Are you a Republican or a Democrat? The SC GOP wants to know

S.C. Republican Party leaders want the state to ask you about your politics when you register to vote.

The S.C. GOP will ask voters casting ballots in the June 12 Republican primary whether the state should give voters registering for the first time, or changing their voter registration, the option to identify themselves as members of a political party.

Right now, S.C. voters do not have the option to identify their political affiliation. Partisan voter registration would be a boon for political parties, which strive to connect with and mobilize like-minded voters, said S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick.

"It's a simple matter of whether or not people should have the right to associate and work together to advance their beliefs," McKissick said. "We believe that they do, and we believe that should include political parties as well."

The question regarding partisan registration will appear on Republican primary ballots in June, but the outcome has no legal or binding authority. However, the results could help build momentum behind a S.C. House bill that would add partisan registration in the state, McKissick said.

That bill would allow voters, voluntarily, to check boxes identifying themselves as Republicans, Democrats, Independents or "other," or write in their political affiliation. (That legislation, which has 49 Republican co-sponsors in the House, likely is dead for the year but could be revived next legislative session.)

The change would be a small step toward a more challenging, but long-held, Republican Party goal: closing the GOP primary so that only the party's faithful can vote in it.

Under current law, any South Carolinian can vote in the political primary of his or her choice. Critics say that allows less conservative candidates to win some GOP primary contests.

The S.C. GOP executive committee last voted in support of closing political primaries in 2015.

Voluntary partisan registration would give the political parties a tool to better identify their voters, McKissick told The State on Monday. "No political party or organization or campaign at any level is any better than the list that they have."

By not allowing voters to self-identify with a political party, the state is creating an "undue barrier" between political parties and voters "in a day when there is already so much apathy about politics," he said.

This story was originally published April 9, 2018 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Are you a Republican or a Democrat? The SC GOP wants to know."