ATLANTA — Since tens of thousands of Democrats crossed party lines in Georgia’s primary, some Republicans are proposing a state law to restrict future primaries to voters who register as party members.
The idea to end Georgia’s open primaries, where any voter can choose either party’s ballot, follows complaints from former President Donald Trump and his supporters that Democrats tainted Republican races rather than voting for their own party’s candidates.
Recently updated turnout data that includes Election Day shows about 67,000 voters in this year’s Republican primary participated in the Democratic presidential primary in June 2020. Those voters amounted to about 6% of all voters who cast ballots in the GOP primary. In comparison, 1% of this year’s Democratic primary voters participated in the Republican primary two years ago.
