This year, Americans Elect became a fully-qualified party in twenty-eight states; also it became ballot-qualified just for President in Alaska and Arkansas. Of those twenty-eight states, nineteen have registration by party. The number of voters who registered as members of Americans Elect is interesting, because the national office of Americans Elect did not encourage voters to register into the party, so the voters who changed their registration were generally acting on their own.

There is no registration data for Delaware, Nevada, and North Carolina for Americans Elect. Delaware simply included all Americans Elect in the “other” category and never bothered to tally them. Nevada followed the same policy. North Carolina State Board of Elections told the counties to convert all Americans Elect registrants to independents, and says it has no data about how many voters ever registered into Americans Elect.

For the other sixteen states, the number of registered voters during 2012 in Americans Elect will be included in the December 1 print edition of Ballot Access News, in a chart that will show the number of registered voters in each qualified party in each state as of the close of registrtion before the election.

Here is a link to the November 2012 exit poll data. The data shows that whereas only 1% of self-identified Democrats voted for a presidential candidate other than President Obama and Mitt Romney, and only 1% of self-identified Republicans voted for a presidential candidate other than Obama and Romney, 5% of the self-identified independent voters voted for another presidential candidate.

Because independent voters are the voters most likely to vote for minor party candidates, this data shows that a top-two system, which keeps minor party candidates off the November ballot, injures independent voters more than it hurts Republican and Democratic voters.

The data also shows 50% of independent voters voted for Romney, and only 45% of them voted for Obama.

The data shows that 38% of the voters self-identified as Democrats, 32% as Republicans, and 29% as independents.

The data shows that 3% of liberals, and 3% of moderates, voted for a minor party presidential candidate; but only 1% of conservatives voted for a minor party candidate.

The data shows that only 5% of the voters think foreign policy is the most important issue in the presidential election. But among those 5% of voters, 11% of them voted “other” for President.

Over the years, many major party nominees have been elected to Congress who started out in electoral politics as members and candidates for a minor party. The newest example is Kyrsten Sinema, who has just been elected to the U.S. House from Arizona as a Democrat. In 2002, she was the Green Party nominee for Arizona State House, 15th district (Tucson). The Green Party listed her in 2002 as one of their star candidates who had a chance of being elected. As a Green, she polled 16.38% of the vote in 2002.

One of the advantages of minor parties in the U.S. is that they often serve as a training ground for aspiring young people who first run as minor party nominees. The experience of running can be educational for the candidate, and may increase self-confidence enough to then switch to a major party.