Republicans in Alabama are split on whether voters should be required to register with a political party to vote in primary elections, according to a new Cygnal poll commissioned by Alabama Daily News and Gray Television stations.
In a statewide survey of likely Republican voters, 36% said they would support a party registration requirement in order to vote in primary elections. While about 38% of respondents said they oppose that requirement.
Roughly 14% of voters neither support nor oppose closing primaries and 11% said they were unsure. The poll surveyed 500 likely GOP primary voters from April 29-30, with a margin of error of ±4.38%.
Legislation to close the state’s primaries died in the Alabama Senate this year after it passed the House by a vote of 63-35.
Under the bill, Alabamians would have chosen their political party affiliation when they registered to vote. If they didn’t want to register with a political party, voters could remain “unaffiliated” but couldn’t vote in primaries.
The deep division over the primary bill in the poll reflects the debate in the Alabama Legislature, where some Republican state representatives joined with Democrats to oppose the bill over fears it would disenfranchise independents. Supporters of the bill said it would have curbed “crossover voting.”
The poll’s findings show that moderate voters widely oppose the requirement, with 75% of those voters against closing primaries.
Voters who self-identify as either extremely conservative or very conservative were the most supportive of the political party registration requirement. About 44% of voters in both of those categories said they support it.
Trump Republicans also tend to favor closing primaries more than traditional Republicans.
Forty-three percent of those who identify more with the president said they support the party registration requirement, while 27% of traditional Republican voters said they support it. About half of traditional GOP voters oppose it, according to the poll.
Men 65 and over have the most favorable view of closing primary elections. About 45% said they would support it, while 35% said they’re opposed. But those numbers show there is still division even among the demographic that is most supportive of the requirement.
Several influential Alabama Republicans have previously expressed their support for closing primaries, including Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, and Republican gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.