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October 05, 2012 06:15 PM UTC

Unaffiliated voter registration surges everywhere. Why and what ramifications will this have ?

  • 10 Comments
  • by: allyncooper

(added a break in the middle for promotion. Interesting… – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)

I did a comment last month on the phenomenon of the recent surge of unaffliated registered voters based on some revealing numbers in Larimer County which I published in the comment posts since the numbers were quite a shocker to me. Re-published here.

Larimer County voter registration growth Dec. 6, 2011 to Sept. 5, 2012.

Unaffiliated: 6,816

Republican: 2,291

Democrat: 1,995

Other: 592

Larimer County voter registration growth Aug. 1, 2012 to Sept. 5, 2012

Unaffiliated: 2,307

Democrat: 997

Republican: 502

Other: 175

Those numbers are quite a wake up call – there are more new unaffiliated voter registrations than Democratic, Republican, and other (“third” parties) combined, and by a huge margin.  

A couple of days ago I read a national Yahoo story about this phenomenon, it’s occurring everywhere. I also searched on the subject and found numerous stories from local and state sources verifying this is happening in almost all parts of the country.

There has been a long term trend in unaffiliated voters to be sure, but the data clearly indicates this has accelerated dramatically in the last two years and the upswing gets even more pronounced  this voter registration cycle.

The reasons for this trend are not clear, but this is definitely something the established parties are going to have to deal with and adapt to, since an increasingly  greater appeal will have to be made to unaffiliated voters than the base of the party. I believe I detected this in Romney’s performance in the debate Wednesday evening with some of his talking points geared more to what would appeal to unaffiliated voters at the expense of his Republican base.

So three questions:

1. Why is the unaffiliated surge happening?

2. What ramifications is this going to have long term on the political landscape?

3. And of immediate interest, what effect, if any, do you think this will have on the November elections?  

Comments

10 thoughts on “Unaffiliated voter registration surges everywhere. Why and what ramifications will this have ?

  1. People always seem to think that not affiliating with a party will somehow opt them out of the vast pile of campaign communications. Occasionally, they actually say this and I have the chance to tell them that is SO not the case.

    1. “Just checking to see if you’ve returned your ballot.”

      “YES, JUST LIKE I TOLD THE LAST 11 PEOPLE WHO CALLED.”

      Most Florida voters doing mail ballots got theirs on the third.  I read somewhere that the local Dems were going to hit the phones asking if people have returned their ballot yet!

      Give it a effin’ rest for a week.  

  2. First, fierce partisanship is a major turn-off for previously disengaged voters, and that’s a big pool new registrations draw from, so it should be no surprise they lean unaffiliated. Some voters disaffiliate after primary season, though this number is probably fairly small. Since a lot of these new voters result from registration drives, it could be possible that it’s easier for a new voter to check “U” in the presence of someone with a clipboard, for a variety of reasons. A big factor, though, is that clerks mailed ballots to primary voters in June, and got undeliverable ballots back from the post office, so partisan voters have had their rolls cleaned up this year  to an extent that unaffiliated voters haven’t.

  3. A large number of people just don’t see the parties as representing them.  There used to be a perception if you didn’t belong to a party you were somehow outside the process an I believe this perception has now been erased.

    The most important ramification will be the rise of unaffiliated candidates who use the new networks of funding and support to create their own platform to propose to neighborhoods, cities and states.  I see progressives getting elected in this manner while promising to caucus with the Dems.

  4. There are several reasons I’m unaffiliated.  The most important: I don’t want my vote to be marginalized or neutralized when the next round of re-districting occurs.  I live in a portion of Jeffco that has been re-districted twice since I moved into my house.  (Yes, it means more mail from both parties, but it’s worth it.)

    I’m not sure why others aren’t.  I know some Republicans who are disgusted with their own party and tired of the fact that the Tea Party seems to dominate.  I think there are some younger people who were raised Republican but lean Democrat (largely due to the Republicans moving so sharply to the right), yet aren’t ready to commit to a party that has been so thoroughly vilified for years.  I don’t know any Democrats who have become disgusted enough with their party that they unaffiliated, though I’m sure that’s possible.  The Democratic position has mostly moved more toward center–“Obamacare” being a good example of a program that wasn’t nearly liberal as some would have liked, so changes there would likely be due to shifts in individual beliefs rather than a major shift on behalf of the party as has been seen from the GOP.

    I’d like to think the long-term effect on the political landscape might be that politicians (ok, Republicans) will have to stop talking about “mandates” and start moving back toward the center.  

  5. U gotta expect that folks will get more information than before.

    The more ANYONE learns about the Demoblican-Republicrat duopoly, the less they like it:

    unless they are rabid tribalist partisans, as can sometimes be found here.  

    1. Ever yet seen or heard of any one semi-sane, semi-credible alternative anywhere?  Oh, hell no!

      I think, perhaps, you’ve overlooked the possibility that there may be a fundamental problem with getting all of this country’s Basil Marceauxs on the same page.

      But, I do admit, I find it entertaining when people who see things as black-and-white/good-or-evil rail against the duopolies in their lives . . .  

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