On October 31, the California Secretary of State released a new registration tally, as of October 20. The previous tally had been as of September 5. Here is a link to the new data.
Compared to last month’s tally, every party gained in absolute numbers, and the number of independent voters also rose. But between the two tallies, the percentage of the electorate registered “Democratic” declined from 43.43% to 43.30%; the Republican share declined from 28.23% to 28.11%. But the share registered into each of the qualified minor parties increased, except that Peace & Freedom declined from .4422% to .4417%.
The largest unqualified party that has asked for a tally of its registrants is the Constitution Party, which went from 347 to 355 registrants.
The largest percentage increase for any group of voters was the Libertarian registration, which increased 2.78%.
There’s still no way the CP can ever gain ballot access in California, not unless they had a billionaire fund a voter registration drive for them.
The Natural Law Party did it in 1995, and the Green Party did it in 1991, and back then the number of registrants needed was considerably more than it is now. I don’t think either of those parties had a billionaire. The Peace & Freedom Party in 1967 certainly didn’t have a billionaire, and they did it.
Man, those Constitution(al)ists are really “settin the woods on fire” when it comes to party registration. Watch out, American Independents, the Constitution(al)ist are gaining ground on you!
Believe me Richard, the CP doesn’t have the passionate manpower in California as other minor parties do to accomplish it.
The share for the P&F declined slightly.
Los Angeles was quite anomalous. While statewide, a 1% gain was typical, in Los Angeles it was only 0.35%. Because of its, size, this drove the statewide increase from 1.19% without Los Angeles to 0.96%.
Of the increase in Los Angeles, 14% were Democrat, 10% Republican, and 68% NPP. Los Angeles claims one of the highest registration rates in California. Only Marin, and a few small mountain counties are higher.
I suspect that Los Angeles purged some registrations, producing oddities in the distribution.
Increase in small party registration is typical before an election as 3rd-party drives pick up registrants who hadn’t thought much about voting before, and won’t think about it later. Other the Libertarians who have been having a deliberate drive, the biggest increases were for NPP, Americans Elect and American Independent.
The California Constitution says that for Top 2 elections (all partisan offices except for presidential electors), shall be conducted without regard to the party preference of the voter or candidate.
By preventing candidates from smaller parties having their party preference appear on the ballot, they are taking into account (or regard) the party preference of the candidate
(eg “Dear Messrs Chamness and Grundmann, With regard to your party preferences of Coffee and Constitution, respectively, you will not be permitted to have it appear on the ballot. Instead you will have No Party Preference, despite your deliberate action to indicate that you indeed have a party preference on your affidavit of voter registration (the one you signed to certify, subject to perjury charges, was truthful and correct).”
Jim Riley wrote:
“By preventing candidates from smaller parties having their party preference appear on the ballot, they are taking into account (or regard) the party preference of the candidate”
That is so key and this is 1/2 the reason (besides pure proportional representation) of what makes the 9th USA Parliament look like the diverse entity which it is, because everyone is free to use any words by their name they wish.
It’s also what divides everyone. Because people are only concerned about their own word instead of protecting the free speech rights of everyone.
I went to the Green Party’s state Berkeley convention in 2011 to work with proportional representation, the California Green Party and Roseanne and I was told I couldn’t be a part because I was an Independent.
I thought they knew what they were doing but they pretty much destroyed everything for us that year.
But that’s how all political parties operate. You attend any party’s convention and no one is looking out for every person and equal time for every candidate. Even the Ds and Rs, and I’ve been to them all.
You get the mean people who think that being mean is proper. So there is nowhere else left to go in order to be a part of a team the way I envision it.
But does the USA Parliament treat people this way? Can anyone tell whether we’ve treated people who want to participate with us badly of unfairly? If not, why aren’t more people interested in what we do? Why to they just delay and never help? If we supposedly treat people in politics right, why is there no interest after 19 years? What are we doing wrong?
We’re trying to make a working model but things that should take hours takes years and decades.
http://www.usparliament
Feedback is appreciated.
Jim, you’re right, PFP declined very slightly. I have corrected the post.
People don’t see that the USA Parliament has any concrete impact on election law. By contrast, the California Peace & Freedom, Green, and Libertarian Parties have had lots of impact on California election law in the past two years. Those parties helped defeat several bills that would have made it illegal for groups to pay registration drive workers on a per-registration card basis. They got the residency requirement for petitioners repealed. They got the deadline for a new party to get on the ballot improved, in presidential years, from January to July. They got the number of registered voters needed to get a new party on the ballot reduced by about 40,000 registrations. All that took a lot of work, working with attorneys and working with state legislators.
You’re correct Richard, the USA Parliament is a microscopic organization. I apologize if anyone was misled.
We’re very small, very slow and our numbers are being rapidly diminished by the minute:
http://www.usparliament.org
Even though I have been critical of the Constitution(al)ists, in fairness, if they would swallow their pride, and force the existing American Independent Party leadership into accepting them, they could through the “democratic process” eventually take control of the AIP.
But this is a problem I have witnessed with factions within some 3rd parties for over 40 years. The leaders of these factions are impatient. It’s either “my way or the highway, right now!” So if they can’t gain control a party “right now,” they get mad, pout and go out and form yet another 3rd party.
I earlier joked over the Constitution(al) Party only having some 355 registered members. But seriously, there should be enough activists among these 355 members to outvote the couple of dozen or so of AIP activists, which I understand control this historic party and have manipulated themselves into a firm grip on the AIP. And the reason I speak so negatively of the AIP leadership, is because they have stood by and are allowing this once active party to begin to wither on the vine.
Bill Shearer would spin in his grave if he knew how abandoned the AIP has become.
So to the Constitution(al)ists in California, I say wake up and face reality. You are never going to get the some 80,000 plus Californians necessary to become members of the Constitution(al) Party so it can become a recognized party in California. Get your active members together, and do what has to be done to make the AIP a great 3rd party in California again.
Starting Wednesday November 5th 2014, the USA Parliament will become known as a “United Coalition” and all names will be members not just candidates.
The 36 State and Federal candidates we’ve been working with will all be contacted about new requirements with which they must comply by 1/1/2015 or face being removed.
Currently, we as a team haven’t elected “Election Law” as one of our nine priorities. But we’d certainly be interested in making that a priority should it receive the 50% (plus one vote) required by the participants.
I will bug you about this between now and 1/1/2015 which is the compliance deadline for the 36 elected State and Federal candidates we’ve recruited.
All our members can vote “Election Law” (or some more detailed description of the item) as one of our ranked priorities/planks anytime.
Our guidelines also feature accountability as a feature to help us continually self-improve in a form of a 365-day a year “vote of confidence”.
I speak to the chair Mark Seidenberg often. They just had their state convention last September. I have the skinny on their POTUS deadline in 2015.
Markham Robinson has been very ill and gave up Chair. I’ve been meaning to phone him about one of their candidates in SF.