The New Jersey Globe, a web newsletter about New Jersey politics and government, here notes that registration into unqualified parties in New Jersey has doubled in the last 18 months, and is now over 40,000. The only reason unqualified parties in New Jersey have any registered members is due to a winning lawsuit won in 2001. Before the state court opinion in Council of Alternative Political Parties v State, all voters were forced to register Democratic, Republican, or independent.
All public party registration lists are PURGE lists.
ZERO learned from Stalin and Hitler purges in 1930s.
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PR and AppV
I wonder how many registered Communists and assorted radical Socialists there are in the People’s Republic of New Jersey?
CO- those Communists and assorted radical Socialists are undercover — as registered Donkeys — or incumbents in the regime.
Is there anywhere that shows a tabulation of the registration number for all the different party registrations.
The NJ Board of Elections website released updated totals in three tables every month- one for US House districts, one for state legislative districts, and one for counties. Link is attached to my name at the top of the comment.
The surge is due to a change in the form/procedure that occurred in early 2016. The article in the New Jersey Globe confuses coincidence with causality.
The new change of party affiliation form has nine check boxes for individual parties.
It then had the following statement:
“I, being a registered voter at the address listed below, do hereby declare that I do not want to be affiliated with any political party or group.”
Followed by a check box for unaffiliated.
While there is a similar statement before the party check boxes, an ordinary reader would likely skip the verbiage, and infer that they were simply be asked to pick a party, and not confirm their address, and thereby make a declaration. Imagine if a pollster asked;
“If you hereby declare your wish to affiliate with the Democratic Party, press one; If you hereby declare your wish to affiliate with the Republican Party, press two; etc.
You would either hang up the phone, or listen to the entire list, then when it began to repeat and you were still trying to parse the “hereby declare” hang up the phone.
The registration form indicates the affiliation question is optional, and repeats that in the instructions. It has a check boxes for Yes affiliate, plus a fill-in blank, and No don’t affiliate.
IIRC, if someone does not affirmatively affiliate or not affiliate when they register, they are sent the change of affiliation form. Some voters are going to interpret that as forcing affiliation.
Voter A: What’s this all about?
Spouse: (Glancing at form) You forgot to choose a party dummy.
Voter A: What should I do?
Spouse: Pick one, and mail it in. No give it to me, you’ll forget to mail it in.
In the 27 months since March 2016, the minor party registration has increased by 7-fold. It had tripled in the 9 months before the 2016 election, so a mere doubling in the last 18 months is a slowing of the rate.
In reality, affiliation since March 2016 has no relationship to previous trends. It is new registrations that have steadily been affiliating.
Of the registrations since March 2016:
Constitution 22%
Conservative 21%
Libertarian 21%
Green 15%
Socialist 10%
Natural Law 9%
Reform 3%
That there so many who picked Natural Law is an indication that voters are picking parties at random. I suspect Reform is so low, is because the state is New Jersey.