Non-Republican registered voters who want to participate in the Aug. 20 primary election of the county’s sheriff and District 5 commissioner have until Monday to formally change their party affiliation.
They may fill out the necessary form at the county Supervisor of Elections office, or use the agency’s voteindianriver.gov website. There is no fee, but a Florida driver’s license (or Florida ID card) and Social Security are required.
Supervisor of Elections Leslie Swan said her office will accept in-person changes until 5 p.m., but voters who prefer to do it online may do so until 11:59 p.m.
Voters who already have received mail-in ballots under their current registration may change their party affiliation and request a Republican ballot, Swan said, as long as they haven’t already submitted the initial one.
Florida is a closed-primary state, allowing only voters registered as member of a particular party to participate in partisan primaries.
There is an exception, however, if all candidates in the race have the same party affiliation and the primary winner will not face any opposition in the general election. Then, under state law, the primary must be declared open to all registered voters in the county.
Next month’s Republican primaries for sheriff and the District 5 County Commission seat are closed because two write-in candidates – Deborah Cooney (sheriff) and Keith Ridings (commissioner) – filed to run.
Thus, non-Republican voters must change their party affiliation if they want a voice in those primaries, which essentially determine who will hold office.
Swan said 434 voters had switched their party affiliation to Republican between June 1 and July 15. Of that total, 206 were Democrats, 200 had no party affiliation and 28 were members of minor parties.
“That’s not a particularly big number,” Swan said, acknowledging that the closed primaries are for high-profile positions. “It could be that when people get their mail ballots, they’ll see those races missing and decide to change their party affiliations.”
As the week began, 59,584 of the county’s 117,689 registered voters were Republicans. There were 27,762 Democrats, 26,513 with no party affiliation, and 3,830 who were members of other parties.
