The California Secretary of State has released registration data for the May 19 tally. It shows these percentages: Democratic 43.75%, Republican 32.53%, American Independent 2.06%, Green .75%, Libertarian .49%, Peace & Freedom .35%, Reform .19%, other and independent 19.88%.
By contrast, the January 22, 2008 tally showed: Democratic 42.95%, Republican 33.28%, American Independent 2.09%, Green .81%, Libertarian .51%, Peace & Freedom .36%, Reform .17%, other and independent 19.82%.
The only parties that increased their share are the Democratic Party and the Reform Party (the Reform Party is not on the California ballot but the Secretary of State still keeps track of its registrants). The gain for the Reform Party is due to a very large increase in Ventura County, and a substantial gain in Santa Clara County. In most counties the party lost registrants. The Secretary of State’s figures for all tallies this year show “zero” Reform Party registrants in Sacramento County, which is an obvious mistake. The Secretary of State’s office blames Sacramento County for this error.
The SoS tracks parties that have filed in an attempt to gain ballot access. The Reform Party has ballot access up to 2002, and has filed ever since to regain ballot access. Since that time Reform Party registrants have steadily declined from 59,294 to 25,101 in April of this year, likely due to attrition due to moving, deaths, purges, and people re-registering as a Declined To State (DTS) or another party.
Since January, the party declined 2,253 outside of Santa Clara and Ventura counties, with fairly consistent losses in the 5-10% range, and even in counties with handfuls of Reform registrants. In fact, in the April report, the Reform Party had continued to lose support in Santa Clara and Ventura counties as well.
In the May report, the Reform Party registration for Santa Clara and Ventura counties is greater than the total Other party support for those 2 counties. Unless Reform Party voters are included within the DTS voters, this is a clear inconsistency. Alternatively, the Reform Party registrants includes persons who are not counted as registered at all.
So we either have a gross mistake, some reclassification in Ventura and Santa Clara counties, or space aliens conducting mass registration drives in two counties since April where they somehow convinced voters to write-in the Reform Party.
PS The registration report has shown 0 for Sacramento County since January. Sacramento County seems to have relatively few Other party voters as well. Maybe they are more efficient/ruthless in eliminating write-in registrations.
Sorry to disappoint but since the prior State Reform Party Leaders left to join the Independence Party of America a group of committed Reform Party Members who had previouy been brow beaten by the prior gang gang has been rebuilding our Party. Look for our Ca Reform Party to be quite active.
Some of us are even working the Colleges again. There is a developing chapter where I teach.