The North Carolina Board of Elections is in the process of converting all the registered Green Party members, and all the Constitution Party members, to independents. The Board is not asking these voters for their opinion in the matter. The parties didn’t poll enough votes in November 2020 to remain on the ballot, but the Board had said if they complete their 2022 party petitions by mid-June 2021, they could keep their registrants.
Very few states don’t allow voters to be registered members of unqualified parties. Generally when a party goes off the ballot, election officials don’t disturb their registrants, even though the state often stops putting their registration tally on the state elections website. Other states that do erase registrants when parties go off the ballot are Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. In Oklahoma, when a party goes off the ballot, it loses its registrants but is then free to re-register them even though the party is not ballot-qualified. See this story.
If I am not mistaken, Kansas also erases a party’s registrants when that party goes off the ballot.
Another example of a lack of bureaucratic enterprise. Election departments should first offer minor parties that lose their ballot status the option of maintaining their registered voters for a fee.
Kansas does not eliminate registrations for parties that go off the ballot, if the party asks to keep them. Section 25-3307 says “Any political organization seeking the right of designation on voter affiliation lists after the effective date of this act shall file a statement of organization and a certified list of officers with the secretary of state. Such organization shall have obtained official recognition as a political party prior to filing. However, current status as a recognized political party is not required.”
Any mere LAW/REG on subject ??? – that by legal fiction ALL voters are aware of ???
@Richard,
Thank you for the clarification re: Kansas.
What about Maryland?