New Idaho Registration Data

The Idaho Secretary of State has posted the November 1, 2016 registration data. The new percentages are: Republican 48.27%; Democratic 10.64%; Libertarian .64%; Constitution .32%; independent and miscellaneous 40.13%.

In February 2016, the percentages were: Republican 40.30%; Democratic 9.53%; Libertarian .63%; Constitution .31%; independent and miscellaneous 49.23%.


Comments

New Idaho Registration Data — 3 Comments

  1. Richard, Two questions: In Idaho, are there any consequences for the D Party to have that few registrants? In Colorado, don’t you become minor-party status if getting less than 10% of the Governor’s race (which they were close to in 2010)? The Colorado situation was why I asked about Idaho.

  2. Idaho has not had party registration until recently. Previously, they used a Pick-A-Party primary, where a voter in the primary could choose a party in secret, and vote in the primary of choice. The Idaho Republican party sued, claiming that this system permitted Democrats and others to determine party nominees.

    Under the new system, all registered voters were deemed unaffiliated, and unaffiliated voters could affiliate on primary election day. While voters could affirmatively register with a party, there was no reason to do so. New registrants may affiliate when they register.

    Each party may determine who votes in their primary (e.g. a party could permit unaffiliated voters and Libertarians, but exclude Republicans and Constitution voters).

    As a consequence, during the primaries, beginning with 2012, there has been a surge of voters switching from unaffiliated to Republican voters, and to a much lesser extent to Democratic affiliation. Democrats permit any voter to vote in their primaries. This permits a voter to vote in the Democratic primary, while still permitting voting in a Republican primary in the future. The Democrats did not hold a presidential primary in 2016 (the DNC might not permit non-Democrats to vote in a Democratic primary).

    Idaho is overwhelmingly Republican, with a 29R/6D Senate; and a 59D/11R House, so for most voters it is irrational to register as a Democrat. You are unlikely to see a contested Democratic primary in a district that will be 60%/70% Republican; you may be lucky to have one Democratic candidate.

    During the primary season (say December 2015 to July 2015):

    Democrats +6K, Republican +83K, Unaffiliated -59K, Total +28.

    That is most of the changes were unaffiliated voters becoming Republican in order to vote in the Republican primary, particularly the March presidential primary. Idaho did not have presidential primaries in 2012, and there was no Democratic presidential primary in 2016. So if you were registered, but generally indifferent to voting, you could vote in Republican presidential primary. If you didn’t ordinarily vote in Republican primaries, it does not matter that you are now a “Republican”.

    In the period from July 2016 to November 2016.

    Democratic +10K, Libertarian +1K, Republican +15K, Unaffiliated +19K, Total +45K.

    So this would be voters registering to vote in the general election. They would fill in a card and check a box for party. If new voters were Republican-inclined, they may have registered during the primary season, instead of waiting until the fall.

    There was a small drop in Libertarian registration coincident with the primary, so that may have been some voters finding out that “Libertarian” registration is useless, since while Libertarians do have primaries, they don’t have them when there are no contested primaries. While there might have been some strategic changes before the primary, and then changes back after, the growth after the primary was likely new registrations. New registrations would be predominately young voters, and if someone were filling out a card, they might tick the Libertarian box (about 2.2% of new registrations after the primary were Libertarian, not a whole lot, but a reasonable about when confronted with a box).

    Because of the history of not having registration by party, there is no qualification based on party registration. There is a 3% qualification based on votes in a statewide race, which both the Libertarians and Constitution party met.

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