When the Ohio legislature re-convenes later this month, it is likely to consider HB 320, a bill with twenty-one Republican House sponsors. The bill would establish registration by party, and provide that only voters who had been registered members of a party for at least 90 days could vote in partisan primaries.

The bill is flawed because it doesn’t have provision for a party to tell the state that it wants independent voters to be able to vote in its primaries. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that states must give parties the freedom to make this decision.

However, if the bill passes, it would help independent candidates. Current Ohio law is hopelessly arbitrary as to who can qualify as an independent candidate. State courts routinely adjudicate cases every year over whether an independent candidate is too closely associated with a qualified party to be allowed to run. They delve into which meetings the candidate has attended, the political activity of the candidate’s spouse, and other personal matters. But if the bill passed, anyone who is a registered independent would be considered legally an independent, regardless of how they behaved politically. The Ohio League of Women Voters supports the part of the bill that sets up registration by party, but it opposes the part of the bill that creates closed primaries.

The bill says the voter registration form would list the qualified parties and show a check-box for each. It also says there would be a blank line on the form for a voter to write in a party that is not listed. But election officials would treat members of unqualified parties as though they were independents.