The South Carolina Republican Party has filed a federal lawsuit to end the state's open primary system, and if they win, hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians could lose their voice in elections.

Right now, South Carolina voters don't register by party. They choose which primary to vote in each election cycle, giving independents and unaffiliated voters meaningful participation in the democratic process. That system has worked for generations. The GOP wants to end it.

Their argument is that allowing non-Republicans to vote in Republican primaries violates the party's constitutional rights. But primary elections in South Carolina are publicly funded and publicly administered. Taxpayers pay for these elections. Shutting the door on independent voters while asking the public to foot the bill isn't a constitutional right, it's having it both ways.

State Rep. Kambrell Garvin said it plainly: this is "a movement to restrict the freedom of voices of South Carolinians" particularly those who are independent and rotate between primaries depending on the election. Independent voters aren't interlopers. They're citizens. And in a state where one party dominates, closing primaries doesn't level the playing field, it eliminates it entirely for anyone who refuses a party label.

The legislature had a chance to act and didn't. Now the GOP is going to court to get what it couldn't get at the ballot box. South Carolinians deserve a democracy where their vote counts, not one where a political party decides who gets to participate before a single ballot is cast.

Sign to defend South Carolina's open primaries and protect every voter's right to participate.