By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Should Arkansas voters be required to declare they are Republicans in order to vote in Republican Party primaries? They won’t be after a court decision May 5. 

The case stems from a vote by rank-and-file Republicans at last year’s state convention to close the primaries. Members did not want non-Republicans, particularly Democrats, voting in their primary. The Executive Committee leadership did not agree. Eighteen of its 24 members voted to rescinded the vote in July. In response, 22 party delegates sued the party chairman, the secretary of state, and the state Board of Election Commissioners.

This is a good, old-fashioned intraparty conflict, in the middle of which U.S. District Judge Brian Miller said he could not get. In his seven-page decision May 5, he wrote that a federal courtroom was not the place to settle the dispute. 

First, he wrote that it’s not a constitutional case. It was not about freedom of speech because the Republican Party of Arkansas is not a government entity. It was not about freedom of association because the RPA can decide its own rules. 

If state laws governed the process, then state officials could regulate. However, the law merely says that parties must prescribe qualifications for voting in primaries and must create rules and procedures. It’s up to the party. Regardless, he wrote that the U.S. Constitution’s 11th Amendment states that federal courts cannot compel state officials to obey state law. 

The plaintiffs were considering what they would do next, Benton attorney Jennifer Lancaster told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Could the issue come up again? It had come up in 2022 before arising again last year. Many states already have closed primaries. 

Party members have a point when they say that only Republicans should vote in the Republican Party primary. 

On the other hand, only a small percentage of Arkansas voters have declared their party allegiance. As of last June, 7.4%, or 132,347, were registered Republicans, while 4.8% were registered Democrats. Almost all the rest were independent, even if they always vote for one party or the other.

Closing the primary would require conscientious voters to register as Republicans – even if they don’t want that label – in order to vote in the primary election, including for local offices like their sheriff and county judge. Throughout much of Arkansas, the Republican primary is the election that really matters because the winner will almost certainly win in November.

Recall that it was the Executive Committee that wants to keep the primaries open. Why would party leaders feel that way?

One reason is that they feel like it’s working. Every Republican in office was elected under the current system. The party dominates much of Arkansas politics. Why would they want to rock the boat? 

Furthermore, Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last June that he would want to encourage independents to vote in Republican primaries and eventually become Republicans themselves. 

Another concern with closing the primaries would be the types of candidates who might win. Voter turnout in primaries is already low. Limiting participation to registered party members would shrink that population even further. Single-digit percentages of the electorate could decide the primary’s winner.

When that happens, fringe candidates – at least those outside the party’s mainstream – would have a better chance of winning. Meanwhile, mainstream Republicans would be forced to veer farther right to protect their flank.

Closed primaries would make more sense in a multiparty system where voters have several credible choices in which to place their allegiance. 

But United States politics has almost always been dominated by two parties. Its winner-take-all electoral system pushes everything in that direction, and in many states including Arkansas, one party dominates. Third parties can’t get traction because voters believe they must vote for one major party in order to stop the other one. That phenomenon is known as the “spoiler effect.”

One remedy would be a ranked choice system where voters rank the candidates. They could rank a third party candidate first knowing their second choice would go to their preferred major party candidate. 

But ranked choice voting isn’t the law in Arkansas unless a voter is serving in the military or is overseas. In fact, lawmakers this past session expressly banned the system, even for local elections. 

For now, the system remains what it is has been. Any registered voter can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. Or they can choose to skip that election, which most already do.

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 19 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.