Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NH
Robert Greene’s twentieth law says the one who commits to no side is courted by every side. In New Hampshire that is 39 percent of the electorate. State law locks partisans in before candidates file, frees the undeclared until the ballot is in hand, and three bills to change it died without a single committee vote in favor.
On Sept. 10, 2024, 76,179 New Hampshire voters who belong to no party walked into their polling places for the state primary. Each asked for a party’s ballot at the door. A little more than half, 40,936, took a Democratic ballot. The other 35,243 took a Republican one. Then, according to the Union Leader’s count of the unofficial returns, 95 percent of them did what state law lets them do on the way out: they signed back out of the party they had just joined and left the building as undeclared as they came in. They made up 32 percent of the Democratic turnout that day and 25 percent of the Republican turnout. Neither party owned a single one of them.
Robert Greene’s twentieth law is about that kind of freedom. Do not commit to anyone, he writes. The person who rushes to take a side becomes one more soldier in someone else’s army and gets taken for granted. The person who holds back keeps every side guessing, and every side pays court. Commitment, in Greene’s account, is a resource you spend once.
New Hampshire wrote Law 20 into its election code. Thirty-nine percent of its registered voters belong to no party, and the law lets them choose a primary at the door and leave it the same day, while voters who did commit are locked into their party for the last three months before the state primary. Three times since 2023, legislators have filed bills to make undeclared voters commit early. Three times the House Election Law Committee killed the bill without a single dissenting vote. The voter who commits to no one is the voter both parties cannot afford to lose.
The largest bloc owns nothing
As of May 4, 2026, the Secretary of State’s office counted 956,346 registered voters, NHPR reported: 314,005 Republicans, or 33 percent; 265,183 Democrats, or 28 percent; and 377,158 undeclared voters, or 39 percent. An August count reported by the New Hampshire Bulletin put the rolls at 888,475, with 347,160 undeclared, still 39 percent. The two reports do not explain why the total fell by tens of thousands in three months, but on the share they agree. The single largest group of New Hampshire voters is the one with no party at all.
That bloc is not new, and it is smaller than it was. In 2015 the pollster Steve Koczela wrote for NHPR that 44 percent of registered voters were unaffiliated, the highest share on record, and that the number of undeclared voters had more than doubled since 1992 while major-party registration grew by less than 10 percent. He found that undeclared voters made up 21 percent of the people voting on primary day in 1996 and 35 to 37 percent in more recent cycles, higher still in the most competitive primaries. The share has eased since that peak. The bargaining power has not.
The committed are locked in
Read the statute as Greene would. It treats commitment as a door that closes. A registered Republican or Democrat who wants to change sides before the September state primary has to do it by the first Wednesday in June. After that, NHPR explained in its 2026 deadline story, Democrats can vote only in the Democratic primary and Republicans only in the Republican one. The timing is the tell. Under RSA 655:14, candidates for the state primary file between the first Wednesday in June and the Friday of the following week. The partisan’s last chance to switch is the day before filing opens. A registered Republican or Democrat has to commit before anyone has declared.
The undeclared voter faces no such door. She can watch both fields take shape all summer, take whichever ballot looks more consequential on primary morning, and sign out of that party before she leaves the polling place. The rule the parties live under, choose early and stay, is the rule the undeclared voter never has to obey. The law rewards the voter who holds out and fences in the voter who signed up.
The candidates know it. A Republican who wins only Republicans, or a Democrat who wins only Democrats, starts a contested primary short. In 2024 undeclared voters cast nearly one in three Democratic state primary ballots and one in four Republican ones. Koczela’s history makes the same point at the presidential level: John McCain won New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary in 2000 largely on his margin among independents, and won them again in 2008.
The Sept. 8, 2026 state primary showed the same pull. With 97 percent of ballots reported, the New Hampshire Bulletin counted 150,684 ballots in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary and 106,779 in the Republican one, a 58.5 to 41.5 split, in a state where registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats. The Bulletin could not say how many of the Democratic voters were undeclared; the state had not published that breakdown when it wrote. Whatever that split turns out to be, the party with fewer registered members drew more primary voters, and the only voters already on the rolls who were free to choose either primary that day were the undeclared.
Three tries to make them choose
The parties’ frustration is easy to find in the House docket. In January 2023, Rep. Michael Moffett, a Loudon Republican, filed House Bill 101 to require voters to declare a party at least four months before the state primary, ending the practice of voting in a party’s primary and walking out undeclared. “The purpose of the closed primary is to ensure the integrity of the primary,” he told the committee, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin. Rep. Ellen Read, a Newmarket Democrat, answered that primary turnout rises and falls with how competitive the races are. Stephen Borne, an undeclared voter, put the voter’s side in one question: “you want me to pick my party before I know who’s running?” The Election Law Committee voted 19 to 0 to kill the bill, and the House agreed by voice vote on Feb. 14, 2023.
In 2025 Rep. John Sellers, a Bristol Republican, tried twice. House Bill 172 would have barred undeclared voters from choosing a party on primary day and required them to switch by the regular deadline, months ahead. House Bill 220 went further and would have closed each party’s primary to its own registered members unless the party’s rules admitted undeclared voters. Sellers compared the open system to a baseball game: “This is no different than the Red Sox playing the Yankees.” The committee voted 17 to 0 against HB 172 and 18 to 0 against HB 220. The House killed both by voice vote on March 26, 2025.
That is 54 committee votes across three bills and two Legislatures, and not one in favor. The committee was led in 2025 by a Republican, Rep. Ross Berry of Weare, killing bills filed by Republicans. Berry gave the plainest reason, the Keene Sentinel reported: “You shouldn’t be asking taxpayers to fund an election they can’t participate in.” He also offered a number. More than 300,000 people voted in the Jan. 23, 2024 Republican presidential primary, he said, and only 23,095 of them later voted in the Democratic state primary.
Why the parties keep losing
Greene’s law explains the pattern better than the debate does. A party that forces the undeclared voter to choose early does not gain a member. It risks losing a voter, to the other party’s primary or to no primary at all. The independent who would have walked in on primary morning to help pick the strongest Republican or the strongest Democrat is the voter every nominee needs in November, and a party that slams the door in spring has told her where she stands. The undeclared bloc’s power rests on its refusal to commit. Every bill to make it commit would shrink the pool both parties fish in.
The record suggests legislators understand the trade. When Moffett’s bill was heard in 2023, Secretary of State David Scanlan took no position and noted that state law already lets parties limit who takes part in their primaries, the Bulletin reported. The bills asked the Legislature to impose a commitment that, by the secretary’s account, the parties could already demand for themselves. Voters said it themselves when Sellers’ bill was heard in 2025. Dale Vincent of Concord, undeclared for about 40 years, opposed the bill. She told the Concord Monitor: “I feel that we should be allowed to make that choice at the polling place.” Tiani Coleman of New Hampshire Independent Voters told the same committee that independents “do not vote based on party.” That is Law 20 in five words.
A fair objection
The case for closing the door is not frivolous, and its sponsors have made it in good faith. A primary exists to let a party’s members choose the party’s nominee. Sellers argued that the open system lets voters act in bad faith and skews who reaches the general election. Before the 2024 presidential primary, a political action committee called Primary Pivot urged voters to use the Republican primary to defeat Donald Trump, the Keene Sentinel reported. That is the kind of crossover the bills were written to stop. A party that cannot keep outsiders from choosing its candidates has given away something real.
There is also a cost to the undeclared voter that Greene would recognize. Holding out keeps her courted, but it keeps her outside. She chooses among candidates recruited and backed by people who did commit. And the bloc that held 44 percent of the rolls in 2015 holds 39 percent now. Refusing to commit buys influence, and the influence has limits.
Berry’s own figure cuts against the raiding fear. Of the more than 300,000 people who voted in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, he said, only 23,095 turned up in the Democratic state primary that September. Whatever crossover happened, it was not a migration. The objection describes a risk. The committee votes describe how the Legislature weighed it, three times.
The verdict
Greene’s twentieth law holds in New Hampshire, and the state shows its sharpest form. The voter who joins a party gives up the summer before the primary. The voter who joins nothing keeps every option until the moment she votes and gets every option back before she leaves. That is why candidates of both parties chase her, and why three bills to pin her down died 54 votes to none in a committee where both parties sit.
The lesson reaches past the ballot. A legislator, a town or an organization that signs on early becomes a known quantity, counted and then ignored. The one that holds back stays worth courting. In New Hampshire the most powerful person in a primary is the one who would not say whose side she was on until she had the ballot in her hand.
Next: Law 21, on playing a sucker to catch a sucker, tested against the New Hampshire record.
Fact check
| # | Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sept. 10, 2024 state primary: 76,179 undeclared voters cast ballots, 40,936 Democratic and 35,243 Republican; 95 percent returned to undeclared; they were 32 percent of Democratic and 25 percent of Republican turnout; Democratic primary 127,766 ballots, Republican 141,742; registered Democrats 86,830, registered Republicans 106,499 (unofficial) | ATTRIBUTED | Union Leader, Sept. 20, 2024, unofficial returns (no byline shown in the syndicated copy). GSR checked that the components sum to each primary’s total |
| 2 | RSA 654:34, II(b) (registering with a party at the primary; returning to undeclared by card or list before the polls close) and IV (no affiliation change between the first Wednesday in June and the day before the state primary); last amended 2018, 165:1 | VERIFIED | RSA 654:34, gc.nh.gov, opened for this piece |
| 3 | RSA 655:14: declarations of candidacy for the state primary are filed “between the first Wednesday in June and the Friday of the following week”; last amended 2011 | VERIFIED | RSA 655:14, gc.nh.gov, opened for this piece |
| 4 | May 4, 2026: 956,346 registered; 314,005 Republican (33%), 265,183 Democratic (28%), 377,158 undeclared (39%); after the June deadline, partisans may vote only in their own party’s primary | ATTRIBUTED | NHPR, Josh Rogers, June 1, 2026, citing the Secretary of State |
| 5 | August 2026: 888,475 registered, 347,160 undeclared (39.07%) | ATTRIBUTED | New Hampshire Bulletin, Ethan DeWitt, Sept. 9, 2026, citing the Secretary of State. The drop from the May total is not explained in either report |
| 6 | Sept. 8, 2026 state primary, 97 percent reporting: Democratic U.S. Senate primary 150,684 ballots, Republican 106,779 (58.53% to 41.47%); “not clear how many Democratic primary voters were undeclared” | ATTRIBUTED | New Hampshire Bulletin, Ethan DeWitt, Sept. 9, 2026 |
| 7 | 2015: 44 percent unaffiliated, the highest share; undeclared voters more than doubled since 1992 while major-party registration grew less than 10 percent; 21 percent of primary-day voters in 1996, 35 to 37 percent in recent cycles; McCain won independents in 2000 and 2008 | ATTRIBUTED | Steve Koczela, MassINC Polling Group, for NHPR, Sept. 2, 2015 |
| 8 | HB 101 (2023), Rep. Michael Moffett: party declaration at least four months before the state primary; Moffett, Read, Borne and Coleman statements; Scanlan took no position and said the law already lets parties limit participation | ATTRIBUTED | Ethan DeWitt, New Hampshire Bulletin, via the Valley News, Jan. 11, 2023, quoted directly |
| 9 | HB 101 (2023): Election Law Committee 19-0 inexpedient to legislate; House adopted by voice vote Feb. 14, 2023 | ATTRIBUTED | House docket as compiled by the NH Liberty Alliance bill tracker; official docket at gc.nh.gov not opened |
| 10 | HB 172 (2025), Rep. John Sellers: end same-day party choice for undeclared voters; committee 17-0 inexpedient to legislate (Feb. 18, 2025); House voice vote March 26, 2025, killed | ATTRIBUTED | NH Liberty Alliance bill tracker; Citizens Count (“Killed in the House”); Keene Sentinel via the Valley News, Feb. 21, 2025 (17-0) |
| 11 | HB 220 (2025), Sellers and six cosponsors: close primaries to party members unless the party admits undeclared voters; committee 18-0 inexpedient to legislate; House voice vote March 26, 2025 | ATTRIBUTED | NH Liberty Alliance bill tracker |
| 12 | Sellers’ Red Sox quote and “bad faith” argument; Berry chaired the committee; Berry quote; more than 300,000 voted in the Jan. 23, 2024 Republican presidential primary and only 23,095 of them later voted in the Democratic state primary; Feb. 3, 2025 registration (379,789 undeclared, 325,221 Republican, 277,076 Democratic); Primary Pivot | ATTRIBUTED | Rick Green, Keene Sentinel, via the Valley News, Feb. 21, 2025, quoted directly; Berry’s figures are his, not checked against the voter file |
| 13 | HB 172 described as requiring the switch by the regular deadline, months ahead; “skews” argument; Dale Vincent, undeclared about 40 years, opposed the bill; her quote | ATTRIBUTED | Charlotte Matherly, Concord Monitor, via NHPR, Feb. 13, 2025 (Sellers paraphrased; Vincent quoted directly) |
| 14 | Featured photograph: the Balsams, Dixville Notch, Carol M. Highsmith, between 1980 and 2006, LC-DIG-highsm-13788, no known restrictions; the photographer’s note says the first votes of the New Hampshire primary are cast there at midnight | VERIFIED | Library of Congress catalog record 2011631982 |
| 15 | Robert Greene’s Law 20 is “Do Not Commit to Anyone,” from The 48 Laws of Power, Viking, 1998 | VERIFIED | Publisher listing and table of contents |
| 16 | GSR Power Index scores for Laws 1 through 20 | EDITORIAL | Granite State Report’s own rating, not a measurement. Method stated in the chart |
Your voice
Poll. Should undeclared New Hampshire voters keep the right to choose a party’s primary ballot on primary day?
Yes, keep it as it is · Yes, but they should stay in that party afterward · No, make them register months ahead · No, close the primaries to party members
Survey: how do you vote in a primary? Five questions: your town; how you are registered (undeclared, Republican, Democratic); which primaries you have voted in and roughly when; what decides which ballot you take, or why you joined a party; and whether Granite State Report may contact you to follow up.
Discuss. Does a voter who joins no party give up a voice in choosing the candidates, or gain the deciding one? And should registered Republicans and Democrats get the same freedom to switch that undeclared voters have?
Verified New Hampshire residents vote and answer at granitestatereport.com. Or write to granitestatereport@gmail.com with your town in the subject line.
Granite State Report wants to hear from undeclared voters, poll workers and supervisors of the checklist about how the primary-day choice works where you vote, and what would change your mind about joining a party. granitestatereport@gmail.com, 603-931-9264. Confidentiality on request.
Editor’s note: Commentary and analysis, not legal advice. This piece follows Granite State Report’s 2025 report on undeclared voters. Registration and turnout figures are as reported by NHPR, the New Hampshire Bulletin and the Union Leader from Secretary of State data. Bill histories come from the NH Liberty Alliance and Citizens Count trackers and from news reports as cited. The statute is quoted from its current text at gc.nh.gov. The GSR Power Index is editorial, not data. Granite State Report did not request comment from the legislators quoted for this piece; any of them may write to the address above and a response will be added with its date.
