On March 1, the Kansas House passed HB 2210 by a vote of 72-49. It says that voters can’t change parties during the period between early June and the August primary. The Republican House majority felt that in 2012, some Democratic voters were re-registering into the Republican Party in order to alter the outcome of various Republican races. See this story.

In somewhat related news, on February 23, the Kansas Democratic Party State Committee voted that independent voters will no longer be permitted to vote in Democratic primaries. Under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, parties make the decision themselves on whether to let independent voters vote in their primaries. The Kansas Republican Party has not permitted independents to vote in Republican primaries for many years, but Kansas Democrats had been letting independents vote in Democratic primaries. The party says it doesn’t feel it is appropriate for non-members to be helping choose party officers. Kansas is one of the states in which primary voters choose party officers as well as nominees for public office.