Because most states purge their voter registration rolls between elections, the United States has fewer registered voters now than in October 2010. There are fewer Democrats now, fewer Republicans now, fewer independent voters now, and fewer voters in each nationally-organized minor party now. The nationally-organized parties that existed in 2010 and that have as many as 500 registrants in the nation are the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Working Families, Reform, Socialist, and Socialist Workers Parties, in that order.

Americans Elect did not exist in 2010, and now has 3,285 registrants, so it is the only nationally-organized party that now has more registrants than in 2010.

UPDATE: an earlier version of this post said that Massachusetts had converted the state’s registered Libertarians to independents. The earlier version was mistaken about that. Massachusetts had 10,839 Libertarians registrants as of December 31, 2011. When that figure is added into the national Libertarian total, the Libertarians don’t have as many registrants nationally as they had had in October 2010, but they only declined by 390 nationwide.

At 2:28 a.m. on February 4, an Indiana criminal jury convicted Secretary of State Charlie White of registering and voting at an address which wasn’t his real residence. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. The judge will decide whether White is now convicted of felonies or misdemeanors.

Rick Santorum’s petition for ballot access in the Indiana presidential primary has been ruled insufficient. He had the needed 4,500 signatures statewide, but Indiana also requires 500 in each U.S. House district, and in one district he was 24 signatures short. He says he will fight the decision and that many signatures were invalidated improperly. See this story.