For decades, pollsters have been asking U.S. residents if they consider themselves to be Democrats, Republicans, or independents. Recently, however, two of the biggest polls have added “other” to those choices. An NBC News/WSJ Survey released April 29 finds that 4% of respondents choose the “Other” category. A Washington Post/ABC Poll released April 21 found 5% chose “Other”.

When one examines voter registration data, only 2% of voters are registered as members of parties other than Democratic or Republican.

The full poll results, for the partisan affiliation question, are: NBC News/WSJ, Democrats (including independents who lean Democratic) 42%, Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) 31%, strict independents 19%, “Other” 4%, undecided 4%. For the Washington Post/ABC Poll, the results are Democrats (including independents who lean Democratic) 53%, Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) 37%, independents 4%, “Other” 5%, undecided, less than 1%. Here is a link to the Washington Post/ABC Poll. The partisan affiliation question is at the very end. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Stevo v Keith, 08-1187, at its May 14 conference. Stevo v Keith challenges Illinois law, which says that in some election years independent candidates for U.S. House need 5,000 signatures, but in other years they need 5% of the last vote cast, which is usually 10,000 or more. Since no independent candidates for U.S. House ever qualified in any of the years in which only 5,000 were required, Stevo asks why the state should ever require more than 5,000.

On April 29, Colorado Republican Senators tried a parliamentary maneuver to kill HB 1299, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. However, the bill survived, and will probably come up for a rollcall in the Senate in the next two weeks. It has already passed the House. See this story for the details.