Treating a friend to voter registration in a Divided America.

ABSTRACT: As partisanship strengthens in the United States, unaffiliated voter registration is also increasing. We conducted an original survey experiment to understand voter registration choices among registered voters in Florida and North Carolina, two states with substantial shares of unaffiliated registrants and persistent partisan polarization, but with differing primary participation rules. Institutionally, Florida holds closed primaries where only those registered with a political party may participate in the respective primary for that party. North Carolina holds semi-closed primaries that allow those not registered with a political party (i.e., unaffiliated registrants) to vote in party primary elections. The results of our experiment demonstrate that institutional context matters. Specific

SUBMITTER: Hood Iii MVT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12707647 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature