As the chairman of the Portage County Republican Party, nothing is more important to me than protecting the integrity of our county’s primary elections.

I have overseen Republican primary elections in our county for dozens of races over the years, from president to state legislature to school board. Giving Republican voters a chance to judge the candidates for themselves and decide who should represent our party in the general election is one of the most incredible processes of our democracy.

It’s critical that we protect that process from outside interference, which is why I support the growing movement in Ohio to stop partisan Democrats from voting in our Republican primaries.

Don’t get me wrong: Republicans certainly welcome disillusioned Democrats to abandon their party and join the GOP. Sadly, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Last year, loyal Democrats, who no doubt voted Democrat up and down the ticket in the general election, openly discussed voting in Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial and Senate primaries in order to influence which candidates they wanted to make it to the general election.

This was a trend across the country, where Democrats voted in Republican primaries to block Trump-endorsed candidates or stop other candidates they considered extreme.

Ohio Democrats may very well have preferred “RINO” candidates over other conservative Republicans in the GOP primaries. But they shouldn’t have had a say in influencing who the Republican Party nominates for these offices. They get their say in November during the general election.

This shouldn’t be controversial, and as late as 2008, election officials from both parties were trying to stop rival voters from “raiding” their primaries, documenting tens of thousands of cases. Even the Democrat Secretary of State at the time, Jennifer Brunner, who is now on the Ohio Supreme Court, acknowledged it was a serious problem. Ohio law as written actually prohibits voters from “crossing over” to vote in a rival party’s primary, but you wouldn’t know it based on how lax current enforcement of the rules are. Guidance from then- Secretary of State Jon Husted’s office issued nearly a decade ago actually bars election officials from questioning a voter’s party affiliation, making the law today toothless.

The argument was that, by opening Ohio’s primary, Republicans would be making it easier for Democrats to switch party affiliations. The numbers don’t back that up. As of 2022, there were 1.9 million registered Republicans in Ohio, compared to 3.1 million in 2020. If Democrats are becoming Republicans, they aren’t staying that way. More likely is that these are fair-weather voters who vote in whatever primary they feel at the moment.

If anyone can vote in any primary in any given year, what is the point of having a primary?

The solution is obvious: update Ohio’s voting laws to allow voters to register with a political party in advance, then announce a registration deadline for a voter to participate in a party’s primary. This isn’t extreme. Other purple states like Pennsylvania and Florida have similar rules in place, and their primaries still thrive.

Republican primaries can be hard-fought and even bitter contests, with different wings of the party rallying behind different candidates and engaging in substantive debates over the future direction of the GOP and the country. We welcome anyone to join the Republican Party and participate in this process, but it needs to be a conscious and genuine decision by a voter to align with the GOP, not a bet-hedging strategy taken by a partisan Democrat on Primary Day.

Our primary process is too important to our democracy to allow otherwise.

Amanda Suffecool is the chairman of the Portage County Republican Party.