1. I went and looked at the various registration reports posted by the California SOS as of the prior presidential election in 2012. The trend has been generally down for the Republicans (5.3 million in 2012 vs 5.0 million in 2016) and the Greens (115k in 2012 vs 95k in 2016). I say generally downward because while there has been an increase as of the primary last June otherwise the numbers have been declining over the past four years. The registration numbers have been upward for the Democrat, Libertarian, American Independent and Peace and Freedom parties. Can someone provide any insight as to why the Greens have declined so much?

2. A large share of the Green registrants left the Green Party in the spring of 2016 so they could vote for Bernie Sanders in the June Democratic primary. Independents were permitted to vote in that Democratic primary, but members of other parties were not permitted. Those voters are coming back to the Green Party.

3. Richard

   The question that Eric L is asking is about the long term trend for the Greens. The cyclical flakiness of the Greens has been an endemic feature of the Party since its founding in 1991. Peace & Freedom also suffers from the same trait to a lesser extent. In essence the Greens and Peace & Freedom have degenerated into Leftish Political Clubs.

   Eric L.

   A small upstart party has a very narrow window of opportunity in which to strike. The timing of when to seek ballot qualification is critical. If a party hangs around too long without field effective campaigns it quickly acquires the reputation as having an ineffective program and gets marginalized. Second chances for political parties are extremely rare. It appears the Libertarians are one of the lucky few. Even with that they are squandering this chance with an ineffective campaign. Nonetheless if the Republicans lose on Tuesday there is a better than 50-50 Chance they will implode giving the Pro-Capitalist Minor Parties a new lease on life. It will be interesting to watch the scramble. The Greens hit their high water mark after Nader’s 2000 Campaign. Specifically they peaked at 161,000 just prior to the start of the 2004 Election Campaign. And it’s been all downhill ever since. The 2004 Campaign was a disaster with 2008 being equally as bad. The 2012 Campaign only showed the Green Party had a pulse. We will see how they do this time out but ask yourself this question. Imagine yourself an undecided voter with no affiliation. Would you vote for a candidate (Jill Stein) that started her campaign by making a public spectacle of her self by pleading for the candidate of a Dominant Party (Bernie Sanders) to take her place on the Green Party Ticket when Sanders made it very explicit at the outset of the campaign that he would support the nominee of the Democrat Party ?

4. GP registration declined nationally by 21% from 2004 – 2010 and only had a tiny uptick in 2012 and 2014. The problem isn’t specific to California or Bernie Sanders.

   There is nothing comparable in that to the LP since the Reagan era. LP national registration declined by 38% between 1980 and 1988. Since then it’s had a 7% slide from 2000 – 2002 (mostly because Pennsylvania didn’t report LP registration in 2002) and an 8% decline from 2004 – 2006 (because North Carolina and Nebraska didn’t.) All other 2 year intervals are up. The 2014 – 2016 period will be its 4th double digit percentage increase in a row and 9th double digit percentage increase out of the last 13 2-year periods. That growth isn’t tied to the current Presidential campaign.

   LP voter registration is tied to Presidential politics, but not its own. It was up strongly during the Clinton and Obama years, was stagnant under Bush 2 and was crushed under Reagan. The exception is that it did pretty well under “read my lips: no new taxes” Bush 1.

   I don’t know what the driving factor is for the GP. It’s clearly not tied to who is President (Up under Clinton but stagnant under Obama; up during Bush 2’s first term, but down during his second.) Maybe its tied to its own Presidential candidates. Or maybe it’s tied to the amount of global warming hysteria in the news.

5. “GP registration declined nationally by 21% from 2004 – 2010 and only had a tiny uptick in 2012 and 2014. The problem isn’t specific to California or Bernie Sanders.”

   The problem is specific to Jill Stein who made a shameless plea to a Democrat Party Hack to take her place on the ticket. This sends the message loud and clear that the Greens are Goofing Around and not be taken seriously.

   “I don’t know what the driving factor is for the GP.”

   The driving factor for the Greens is they are not serious about running candidates for office. They are more interested in ejecting people from the party who dare challenge the dogma of the internal King Makers. Those King Makers have more loyalty the Democrat Party than the people who had the courage to register Green.

   The grim reality is the States that were first to gain ballot status for the Greens in the 1990s Alaska and Hawaii have since fallen off the Ballot. And judging from the deterioration in registration the California Green Party could fall off the Ballot before 2020 in light of the overall growth of voter roll there. That would be a death blow for the Party. The 161,000 registrants the Greens had in 2004 represented close to 75% of all Greens registered in the country. The 94,000 registrants the Greens have in California today represents more than a third of the total Greens in the US. After the 2004 Election the Greens had ballot status in 31 States. Today the total has dwindled to 21 States. Even in the rosiest scenario for the election Tuesday the Greens the best the Greens can hope to do is pick up 7 states although the falling below 20 States with Permanent Ballot Status is far more likely.

   Global Warming Hysteria has nothing to do with it. When people register into a party the expect to see that party run candidates for partisan seats when they go to the voting booth. If candidates are not present on the ballot those registrants move on. Running candidates for nonpartisan City Council and School Board Seats counts for zip.

6. Most voters are not active in internal affairs of a party. I doubt 5% of voters are. In California that would mean almost a million were. But it would also mean 18 million registered voters weren’t (and another 7 million adult citizens who were not).

   And even registered voters may not vote. In 2008, only 79% of registered voters voted, and about 59% of eligible persons did. In 2014 for the gubernatorial election, only 42% of registered voters voted, or about 31% of eligible.

   Most voters only register to vote so they could vote in presidential elections. They are not going to register to vote in a city election, or a school board election, or even a gubernatorial election. If they are already registered, they may vote.

   Eventually, voters may be purged. Voters can not be purged for simply not voting; but they can be purged if they can’t be contacted, and then don’t vote for two general elections. Some counties are more aggressive in purging. Orange County bought commercial lists of people who had moved, and then contacted the voters, who could then return a prepaid postcard that they had moved to Arizona or wherever. But another county may send something by mail and have it returned. They then have to wait for four years of non-voting before the voter is actually purged.

   Between 2012 and January 2016, the number of registered voters in California declined by 986,000. Most were not voters leaving the state during this period, but were voters who had left previously and did not vote in California in 2012 or 2014.

   Democrats lost 6.6%, Republicans 8.8%, and Greens 10.7%. Libertarians and P&F had active registration drives, and American Independent may benefit from their name and being first on the list. Republicans and Democrats are more likely to have stable housing, because they are older, more married, have stable jobs,etc. Minor party voters are more likely to be young, single, change jobs, and move to another state on a whim. They may decide to be a Green in California, and a Libertarian in Oregon. It is no more nevermind that buying a new outfit (generalities here, but minor parties do have more churn).

   By the time of the June presidential primaries, registration increased by 656,000, erasing 2/3 of the loss over the previous 3-1/2 years. This was strongly toward the Democratic Party in order to vote in the June primary. All the minor parties lost voters, but it was particularly profound among Greens, who lost 24.2% of registrants. Peace&Freedom lost 5.6%, Libertarians lost 4.5%, American Independents lost 3.1%, while Democrats gained 7.9% and Republicans gained 2.5%.

   While some of the Green to Democratic switches may have been calculated strategic targeted moves, most were persons updating their registration to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. They might have moved five years ago, and perhaps not even designated as inactive. They realize that they may not be registered at their current residence. They register as a Democrat, and their old registration of Green is eliminated. While there were 562,000 new Democrats, the Green decline was only 25,000.

   The registration process does not ask, “You are currently registered as a Green, are you sure you want to change to Democrat? Click Yes to confirm; Click Yes to remain Green? It simply asks what party you prefer.

   There was somewhat similar phenomena in 2008, but it was weaker because the presidential primary was on February 10. There were not months of watching the campaign in other states. The decline was actually spread over the entire year (136K Greens at start of election year, in September 2007; 127K before February presidential primary; 120K before regular primary in June; 118K before general election.

   There does appear to be some residual change in registrations after elections. Registrations made after the 15-day deadline are held, and then processed after the election. And some of the decline in the remainder of 2008 may have simply been voters making sure they were registered for November.

   There may have been a small bounce-back after the June, 2016 primary – Voters switching from Green to Democrat, and then back to Green. It might amount to 20% or so of the Spring defections.

   After the June primary, total registration had increased by 90K by July, the deadline for qualifying new presidential parties. There was another 166K added before the 60-day report in September; but 1160K added before the final report.

   So it took the 2016 presidential primary, and the following three months to restore the attrition since 2012 (a loss of about one million from 2012 to early 2016; a gain of about one million for the June primary and the next few months. Another 1.2 million were added in the last 45 days.

   All the minor parties had big increases in these last 45-days:

   Libertarian +15.4%
   Green +11.7%
   American Independent +11.0%
   Peace & Freedom +8.4%

   No Party Preference (and other) +10.4%

   Democratic +5.7%
   Republican +3.3%

   Overall about 0.9% of the new registrants were Green. These weren’t persons joining the Green Party, so much as persons selecting Green on a pull down menu when registering to vote.

   In the Online registration, there are a radio buttons to either choose a party preference or “No, I do not want to disclose a political party preference”, which also has a warning that you may not be able to vote in presidential primaries or vote for party committees.

   Despite the slightly negative connotations of: “No”, “don’t want to disclose”, and “not be able to vote in presidential primaries”, 38% of new voters chose to become NPP, compared to 24% of existing voters.

   0.9% of new voters selected “Green” vs. 0.46% of existing voters. But the new registrants were young. 31.3% of then were 25 and younger.

7. Jim Nice analysis You effectively parse out the effect of the shennanigans on the development of the Greens versus what has happened to the other parties. A great deal of what I’m addressing is the long term effects. When the Greens qualified in California in 1991 the requirement was 93,000 registrants. The Greens obtained 103,000 to make the ballot. By February 2000 the Greens mounted a very modest growth to 108,000 registrants. That was before Nader declared his run. By 2004 the Greens were up to 161,000 which is really pitiful considering that Nader pulled down 2.88 Million Votes. If they seized upon the moment and ran any sort of registration drive they would have easily been at half a million registrants. By June of this year when they were at the bottom of the flakey cycle they stood at 76,000 registrants. So they have recovered to 94,000 registrants. That is less than what they started with 25 Years ago. Now take a look at what has happened to the Decline-to-State Voters. In 1991 when the Greens Qualified the NPP stood at less than 5%. Today, some 25 years later, the Decline-to-State registrants is with a whisker of 25%. That’s a 5 fold increase ! If the Greens had doubled their numbers in that period the issue of maintaining their ballot status would be a nonissue. The only reason they remained on the ballot for this cycle was because the California State Legislation passed a new law lowering the requirement. The rationale for the law was based on the increasing voter rolls. If the number of new registrants continues ti grow will the number of Greens continues to shrink do the Greens seriously expect the Legislature to drop the requirement again ?

8. The legislature should drop the qualification requirement to 100. Along with organizational requirements, that is all that is necessary for recognition as a “party”.

   All presidential nominations could be by petition, with members of the party presumed to support the petition. Party elections could be by all-mail ballot.

   With more voters registering on-line, Green affiliation could be maintained. Affiliation over the last 45 days was at a rate almost double the total affiliation rate before September.

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