The Obama campaign has set up www.voteforchange.com, to make it very easy for unregistered citizens to register to vote. The website asks a prospective voter basic questions, such as name, address, party affiliation, and other personal identifying information. Then, the website automatically fills out a voter registration application for whatever state the voter lives in. The voter is then free to print the completed application on that voter’s home printer, and sign it, and mail it to the state or local election administration address that has already been pre-printed on the form. The site is completely non-partisan and does not collect the personal information provided. Interesting, under the box for “choice of party”, the choices are Democratic, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, Green, other, and none. An entry under “other” will accept any designation. Thanks to Ed Still’s VoteLawBlog for this news.
Does the Obama campaign realize that they are inadvertently enrolling people in parties called the “Independent Party” in Delaware, Florida, New Mexico and Oregon?
Good point!
That would benefit the Nader campaign, would it not?
I don’t buy the idea that parties benefit merely from having a lot of people enrolled, especially when they don’t even know they’re enrolled. The longest established of these four parties, the Independent Party of Florida, barely exists despite a massive enrollee list.
I imagine some parties in this situation have even lost money making misguided attempts to fundraise from these lists.
P.S. I’m not sure if any of these states allow unenrolled voters to vote in party primaries, but if so, the Obama campaign may be inadvertently preventing people from participating in a process that was very beneficial to him earlier this year.
Ditto for Mass. Those people (a slight majority BTW) who choose not to be a member of a Major Party or “Political Designation” (minor party) are called UNENROLLED (U) – one of our political designations is called the “Independent voters party” and gets the letter “I”
ART
Is it legal to have someone else fill out the rest of the form for them? I know someone was kicked off the ballot in PA for doing that on petitions. It’s a different situation, but I was still wondering if it is legal.
Well, technically, no other person is filling out the form; the computer is filling it out.
Some States forbid the name independent or any derivative of the word for good reason. People wanting to remain unaffiliated need to be able to do so with that general term. Good thinking on those State’s part.
I know of several small party efforts using the term. One is made up of folks who are opportunist in my opinion. NY has the most unusual of all ballot access laws and methods. They buy and sell top most ballot lines and use a thing call fusion where candidates can be on several different lines to collect a total of votes. Parties are not necessarily aligned on an issue or even a candidate. Party is purely placement on the ballot. But wait, there is more, this method leads to some great confusing as those owning these lines than attempt to claim by a sort of loose trademark all other parties of the same name and all registered voters under that name in other States. I doubt a test of the idea will prove fruitful in the end for those operators, but for the citizens who know no better, it can be very confusing and upsetting.
Independent registration really should be removed from the sites good effort to assist folks with registration.