30 Local Republicans Drop Party Affiliation

Over 30 Cambridge Republicans have erased the party designation beside their names on the election commission's rolls during the past week.

The move has been attributed by commission officials to the statement made by Sen. Barry Goldwater in accepting the GOP presidential nomination: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."

Thomas J. Hartnett, secretary of the election commission, said that most of the thirty had left a blank beside their names, leaving themselves the opportunity to vote in either primary Sept. 10. A few however, have switched from Republican to Democrat.

There are only 6,638 registered Republicans in Cambridge, as against 26,574 Democrats and 10,864 Independents.