New Hampshire goes in 5 days, Rhode Island the day after. Independents are the largest single bloc of voters in both states, and neither state locks them out. But in both — unlike Massachusetts a week earlier — taking a party ballot re-registers you with that party. Staying independent takes a form.
New Hampshire and Rhode Island are both classed semi-open — independents may take a party ballot. So was Massachusetts, which voted on September 1. Three states, one label on the map, and the price is different in every one. Massachusetts is here as the benchmark: it shows what the same rule looks like when it costs nothing.
Taking either party’s ballot changes nothing. You walk out unenrolled, automatically, with no form to file.
Taking a party ballot registers you with that party. You can return to undeclared only by signing back with the supervisors of the checklist before you leave the polling place — otherwise the change stands.
Voting in a party primary makes you a registered member of that party. Undoing it means filing a Change of Party Designation form, which carries a 90-day waiting period — though the form can be filed at the polling place straight after voting.
A voter who moves from Boston to Providence keeps the same politics and loses the ability to vote in a primary without declaring a party. Nothing about that shows up in the word “semi-open.”
New Hampshire is the rarer case. Undeclared voters aren’t just the biggest bloc — they outnumber Republicans and Democrats individually, in a state decided by 2.8 points in the last presidential election. The people who decide New Hampshire are the ones the parties can’t count.
39.4% of registered voters — more than either party.
32.8%. The larger of the two parties here.
27.7%. Third place in registration.
More than half of Rhode Island’s registered voters belong to no party at all — 355,622 of 689,737. It is also the state where reclaiming that status after voting takes the most work: a form, and a 90-day wait.
51.6% — an outright majority of the electorate.
48.4%. Fewer than the unaffiliated on their own.
The waiting period on a Change of Party Designation, if you don’t file at the polls.
Between them the two states are home to 124,953 veterans. Applying the 49% veteran independent-identification share — an estimate, and labelled as one — roughly 61,227 of them identify as independent.
ACS 2024. An estimated 39,952 identify as independent.
ACS 2024. An estimated 21,275 identify as independent.
Registered with no party in New Hampshire and Rhode Island combined.
Sources: New Hampshire Secretary of State, party registration (May 4, 2026); Rhode Island voter registration (July 1, 2026) via the IVA voter-data backbone; primary dates from each state’s election authority, cross-checked against the IVA 2026 Primary Calendar; primary participation rules per each state’s election law as summarised by Open Primaries and the New Hampshire Secretary of State; veterans from the U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-Year, table S2101. The 49% veteran independent-identification share is an identity estimate, used only for the veteran slice and never folded into a registration total. Compiled by Independent Veterans of America.
If you’re undeclared in New Hampshire or unaffiliated in Rhode Island: you can vote next week. Just know what the ballot does to your registration — and how to undo it before you leave.
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