On August 10, the Florida Secretary of State released a new voter registration tally. That office rarely releases new tallies. It doesn’t release any during odd years, and in even years only releases tallies just before an election. The new tally was released for the August 2018 primary.

Percentages are: Democratic 37.19%; Republican 35.30%; independent and miscellaneous 26.84%; Independent Party .34%; Libertarian .24%; Green .05%; Constitution .01%; Reform .01%; Ecology .004%; Party for Socialism and Liberation .003%.

In February 2018, the percentages were: Democratic 37.27%; Republican 34.86%; independent and miscellaneous 27.34%; Libertarian .24%; Independent Party .19%; Green .06%; Constitution .01%; Reform .01%; America’s Independent Party .01%; Ecology .003%; Party for Socialism and Liberation .003%.

The number of registered voters in the new tally is lower than the February 2018 tally. The February 2018 tally was never published on the Secretary of State’s web page, but was determined by ordering a list of all the registered voters and running a program to tally each party. Ken Moellman helped with that.

It is somewhat surprising that the number of registered independents declined, as a percentage. It declined by 250,000 voters since February 2018.

America’s Independent Party lost its qualified status sometime earlier in 2018. It had run Tom Hoefling for President in 2016 and 2012, and Alan Keyes in 2008.

The West Virginia Supreme Court is currently considering whether the Constitution Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate, Don Blankenship, should be on the November ballot or not. Blankenship v Warner, 18-0712. On August 17, the state’s Republican Party asked permission to intervene. This is somewhat surprising, because West Virginia has a Republican Secretary of State. Here is the 12-page brief. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the link.

On August 16, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed AB 1947, which outlaws paying petition circulators on a per-signature basis. The bill now goes to the Senate floor.