The Athens Messenger has this article about the March 2016 Ohio primary. It mentions the number of voters who changed party affiliation during that primary. Ohio voter registration forms do not ask the applicant to choose any party. But Ohio keeps track of the party affiliation of voters, by keeping a record of which party’s primary ballot a voter chooses on primary day. The story shows that many voters who had previously been considered to be Democrats chose the Republican primary ballot, so those voters are now considered to be Republicans. The number of voters who switched to the Republican Party is considerably greater than the number who switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
ALL partisan records kept by a government regime are PURGE lists.
— now rather obvious in view of the super extremists Hillary and Donald.
Think the 1934 Hitler PURGE and the 1936-1939 Stalin PURGE.
The Secretary of State has a more complete set of data.
Prior to the 2016 primary, Ohio had 10.7% Democrats, 16.8% Republicans, 72.4% Unaffiliated, 0.117% Libertarians, 0.036% Greens, 0.002% Constitution, 7 Natural Law, and 1 Socialist. The interesting thing is that the SOS continues to track Libertarian, Constitution, and Socialist affiliations. All the former Natural Law affiliations were from rather small Shelby County (about 0.4% of the state population), which indicates the SOS was depending on county data. The percentage of Democrats in swing-state Ohio was comparable to that in very-Republican Idaho.
The counties may have lost track of some affiliations, or perhaps they get reset when a voter registers at a new address, name, or county. There is one sheet purporting to show changes for 2012, which shows 1.1 million Democrat ballots, and 1.3 million Republican ballots, but there were no where that many votes cast for statewide offices.
Of the 810,949 pre-2016 primary Democrats, 62.7% voted in the Democratic primary, 14.3% voted Republican, 0.1% voted Green, 0.5% voted a nonpartisan ballot, 22.5% did not vote. Many of these are probably stale registrations. If someone in the past had voted in a low-turnout primary such as 2010, 2012, and 2014, it would seem likely they would turn out in 2016 if they were still around. 19.5% of pre-2016 Republicans also did not vote in the 2016 primary.
The 508,601 repeat Democrats were joined by 2,341 minor party voters; 34,867 former Republicans; and a whopping 651,928 unaffiliated voters, 58,139 of whom were new voters.
2.336 million voted in 2008 Democratic primary. By 2016, before the primary, this had declined to 810,000 Democratic affiliated voters. The only way that this makes sense is if they lost track of the affiliation of more infrequent voters, perhaps through re-registration that occurred when they moved.
Western Ohio is extremely Republican. Persons who live in small towns and farms are more connected to their local community. If they want the local news, they go to a local cafe, or the farm supply store, or the HS football game, or maybe the weekly newspaper. The Republican primary is when their legislators are chosen. While there was cross-over voting, there were so few Democrats and so many Republicans to start with, there were few crossovers (in some counties 2% or 3%).
There are some comparable Democratic areas from Youngstown south along the Ohio River in Steubenville, west of Wheeling, etc. Here the Democratic Primary will determine the local office holders. In Mahoning County, before the primary there were 9% Republican, 25% Democratic, and 65% unaffiliated. The 2016 Republican turnout was 34% current Republicans, 27% Democrats, and 40% unafilliated.
There appears to a difference in ballot selection behavior between presidential primary years, and gubernatorial primary years. In gubernatorial primary years, turnout is lower, and more voters select a non-partisan ballot. Voters may be more likely to express a sincere partisan preference, or to say they are independent. There have been very few hot state primary races in Ohio in recent years, so voters may choose a party based on their location.
In presidential primary elections, voters appear to select the hot race. In 2008, the Clinton-Obama Democratic primary drew 2.34 million voters, while the McCain-Huckabee Republican primary had 1.14 million voters. It is quite possible that the Clinton-Obama primary drew voters to both Democratic and Republican primaries.
In 2012, the Romney-Santorum Republican primary drew 0.93 million voters, and the Obama-unopposed Democratic primary drew 0.52 million.
In 2016, the Kasich-Trump Republican primary drew 1.95 million voters, while the Clinton-Sanders Democratic primary drew 1.20 million.
It is quite likely that many of those voting, did so to vote for or against Governor Kasich.
Clerk: Do you wish to affiliate with the Democratic or Republican party?
Voter: Huh? I want the ballot with Donald J. Trump.
Clerk: Then you will want to affiliate with the Republican party.
Voter: Whatever.
To an ordinary decent citizen, it does not make any sense to restrict them to voting for only some candidates. If the Trump voter last voted in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, then they will show up in some spreadsheet as switching from Democratic to Republican.