Better for America has been a ballot-qualified party in New Mexico since June 2016. It nominated Evan McMullin for president in the 2016 election, and because he polled over one-half of 1%, it is still on the ballot. In November 2016 it only had 121 registrants, but now it has 1,331. The New Mexico Secretary of State has new registration data every month; click here to see the data, including the latest tally, which is as of December 6, 2016.
Better for America need not run any candidates in New Mexico in 2018 to remain on the ballot, but it will go off the ballot in 2020 if it doesn’t run anyone for any partisan office.
So disappointed to read this. I was hoping we had heard the last of Egg McMuffin.
The SOS has been reporting the minor party breakout since March 2017, just after the purge. The last previous breakout was was for the Green Party in 2004.
I suspect that there has been a change in the registration process (perhaps online?). The last previous breakout was in 2004, when the Green Party was reported.
The paper registration form has a blank and says that you have to register with a major party to vote in the primary. The online registration apparently has a separate question, and I suspect that they offer choices of qualified parties.
Throughout 2017, Democratic registration had a tiny decline, which was reversed just a bit towards the end of the year. Registration will catch most people who will die. It doesn’t do a good job of catching people who are moving. Few people call up the county clerk to say I’m moving, so take me off the voting rolls. Only about 50% of movers tell USPS to set up a forwarding address, and that is not sufficient to trigger removal. That only lets election officials to send non-forwardable mail to the voter, and if that is returned, they then send forwardable mail to the last address. If that gets no response, they can then put a voter on the active list. If someone moves within the state, and updates their drivers license, they are likely get re-registered. Most probably won’t change their party. If they were DTS before, that won’t change. Some who changed just to vote in a presidential primary, might switch back to DTS. The tiny uptick at the end of the year is probably a token amount of voters registering to vote in local off-year elections (Albuquerque had a mayoral election).
Older voters are more likely to be Democrats or Republicans when they die. New voters are more likely to choose DTS when they register. People who move to a state might not get a driver’s license immediately, and won’t be registered.
Democrats have declined 0.2% since March, while Republicans have only increased 0.1%. Decline To State have increased by 4.0%.
Other voters of all stripes have increased 0.7% since March. But voters registered in the three minor parties have increased by 25.5% This suggests that these parties have become more visible on registration forms. Better For America has increased 410% since March from 261 to 1331. Greens have increased by 8.6%, and Libertarians by 19.2%.
Meanwhile the number of voters registered with OTH has declined from 678 to 624, while the other OTH has declined from 37,827 to 35,684. I suspect that the smaller OTH is made up of voters who checked an Other box on a registration form but didn’t write in a name or perhaps did write Other. The larger OTH is like all other responses and may include a bunch of “Independent”
An older form may have made “Decline To State” an unappealing choice, but a form that presented the choice as
Party
( ) Better For America
( ) Demoocratic
( ) Green
( ) Libertarian
( ) Republican
( ) Other
or no party
( ) (Decline To State)
On the Delaware electronic registration, the fill-in box for Other does not appear until after Other is selected.