The New Jersey Elections office has released new voter registration data. The percentage of registered independents declined. The percentage of voters registered in each political party increased.
The June 2017 percentages are: Democratic 36.08%; Republican 21.31%; Libertarian .12%; Conservative .09%; Constitution .08%; Green .08%; Socialist .04%; Natural Law .03%; Reform .01%; independent 42.16%. Here is a link to the numbers of voters in each party, in each county.
The November 2016 percentages were: Democratic 35.64%; Republican 20.82%; Libertarian .09%; Conservative .06%; Green .05%; Constitution .04%; Socialist .02%; Natural Law .02%; Reform .01%; independent 43.24%.
The percentages for the minor parties are low because the voter registration form itself only has a blank line for the question about political party choice, and most voters aren’t aware that they can choose any of nine parties. There is a separate form that does list all the party choices, however, but it isn’t clear whether it gets much distribution. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
There is a provision in New Jersey statute that if the party is not legible, that the declaration of party affiliation form will be sent to the voter. New Jersey requires an active declaration of non-affiliation (as opposed to a failure to affiliate). Your characterization of Unaffiliated as “independent” is inaccurate.
Beginning around the start of 2016, there has been a massive increase in the number of voters affiliated with all the minor parties. The NLP has gone from 38 in February 2016 to 1134 in June 2017, almost a 30X increase. This surge is coincident with the the date of the Declaration of Party Affiliation form (02/27/16).
The party affiliation box on the registration form is highlighted as being Optional, which would likely result in many persons skipping the question entirely.
So I suspect that voters who do skip the box OR select the party box and then write-in an unknown party such as “independent” is interpreted as not being legible, and are then sent the Declaration form. So at the beginning of last year, there was either a change in statute, or a change in policy. Since then, the increase in registrations has been:
Libertarian 4181
Conservative 4136
Constitution 3997
Green 3190
Socialist 2036
Natural Law 1134
Reform 522
It is somewhat encouraging that the two parties that no longer functionally exist had the fewest registrations. I don’t know if the Conservative Party is active in New Jersey, but there is a Conservative Party in nearby New York.
Thanks for the information about how the party affiliation form gets circulated.
Why do think “independent” is not a synonym for “unaffiliated”?
Looks like the Constitution Party doubled its registered voter numbers. That, along with the fact that they have a gubernatorial candidate for the first time, is a good sign for them.
Has there yet been information released about the numbers of independent and third party candidates on the ballot for New Jersey legislature? The American Solidarity Party has one.