MONROE — Unaffiliated voters can still vote for Union County’s Board of Commissioners.

At about 3 p.m. Saturday, however, that right was not so secure.

N.C. Republican Party leaders got together in Raleigh Saturday to possibly restrict the Republican primary only to those voters registered as Republican.

In North Carolina, an unaffiliated voter may vote in either party’s primary, but not both. Republicans have invited unaffiliated voters since 1988. Democrats have allowed unaffiliated voters since 1996.

N.C. Sen. Eddie Goodall, R-Union, drove to Raleigh to keep the unaffiliated voters in.

“We tried to point out that a lot of unaffiliated voters are more conservative than Republicans,” he said. “I would contend that there are a majority of unaffiliated voters who are conservative, especially on economic issues.”

Goodall said the motion was defeated “about three or four to one.”

Local officials resoundingly denounced the idea as a poor one. Every commissioner reached — Parker Mills has been out of town — said unaffiliateds should get a vote.

“The mainstream, the majority of people, have bits of this party and bits of that party and bits of no party,” Commissioner Kim Rogers said.

“They are not leaning toward a party, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to vote for individuals,” Commissioner Allan Baucom said.

“Just let people vote, is my thing,” Commissioner Tracy Kuehler said.

Union County would be greatly affected by a rule that excludes primary voters because of how Republican the local government is.

In the 2008 commissioner election, no Democrats ran for a seat. That meant that when then-candidates Kueher and Rogers were elected out of the primary, they were the de facto commissioners because there was nobody left to run against.

The last time Democrats had candidates run for commissioner was 2004, when both Max Melton and Frank Deese ran.

N.C. Rep. Curtis Blackwood, R-Union, also opposed the suggestion. If the system is not broke, don’t fix it, he contended. “Unless we actually have a reason to address something, I don’t think you should change it just for the sake of saying you changed something.”

Some Republicans argued that allowing unaffiliated voters in could swing the primary result toward a more moderate candidate, or even open the door for Democrats to register as unaffiliated and try to swing an election.

“Those things, to me, sound like paranoia,” Goodall said. “I mean, Republicans could do the same thing to Democrats. I just don’t see that happening.”

A party has until Dec. 1 to tell the State Board of Elections it wants to prevent registered voters without a party from participating in the next year’s primary.

Nineteen of the 41 states with presidential primaries last year had closed primaries, according to a report from electionline.org.

The number of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina has soared from 608,000 in 1998 to 1.4 million last year. They now constitute almost 23 percent of the state’s registered voters.

About 46,200 unaffiliated voters participated in the May 2008 Republican primary, or more than 9 percent of the ballots cast for GOP nomination for governor, according to State Board of Elections data.

But that could underestimate their potential to swing an election, since more than 211,500 unaffiliated voters chose to vote in the Democratic primary, where the presidential nomination between Obama and Hillary Clinton had not been decided. McCain had already sewn up the GOP bid.

With Republicans making up 32 percent of the state’s 6.1 million registered voters, the GOP must attract more independents and conservative Democrats to win statewide elections than the Democrats.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story