By Shawn M. Griffiths
California citizens should be cautious when they register to vote. According to the grassroots campaign, Don’t Be AIPrl_Fooled, hundreds of thousands of Californians have registered as members of the American Independent Party (AIP) believing that by doing so they are registering “independent” of any party or any single ideology. The truth is, AIP is a party with strong ideological roots dating back to 1967.
According to voter registration data, AIP is not only the fastest growing political party in California, but is the third largest party behind the Democratic Party and the GOP. However, the truth is the fast growing segment of the voting age population — both in California and nationwide — are independent voters who do not wish to be affiliated with any party. Unfortunately, many are mistakenly registering with a party established in the late 60s to get Alabama Governor George Wallace elected president under a segregationist platform.
What evidence does AIPrl Fooled have to suggest that most registered members of AIP joined by mistake? Perhaps the clearest indicator is how the party’s candidates perform in elections.
In the 2012 presidential race, most of the candidates on the ballot earned an excess of their party’s registration, meaning the candidate got a higher number of votes than the total turnout of their party. This happened with every candidate, except for one. The AIP candidate, Thomas Hoefling, not only failed to break even with registered AIP voters, but 88 percent of “party members” voted for someone else.
Read the full article here.
LP however is not paying anyone to register voters.
Richard Winger said: ” They show that during those 10 months, AIP lost 7,000 members. By contrast, Peace & Freedom gained 14,000 and Libertarian gained 3,000.”
It should be pointed out that the Peace & Freedom Party conducted a paid voter registration drive, as in they were paying people to get people to register to vote under the Peace & Freedom Party banner. This probably had a lot to do with their increase in voter registrations.
There are “independent” parties in quit a few states.
It is the same in Florida. Our voter forms only say Democrat/Republican/(Fill in the blank). So the Independent Part of Florida has something like 500,000 “members”
Richard, in addition to what Andy said, there are also a lot of old voter reg forms in various places still being distributed to the public.
RTAA,
The IVN is complaining because they want to have more people registered as actual independents, IE without a party and they correctly believe that people registering AIP by mistake are hurting their percentage of actual registered independents.
“Root’s Teeth Are Awesome April 1, 2014 at 1:25 pm
So what’s the harm?
1. People can still vote however they like, despite their registration.
2. Maintaining ballot registration doesn’t even mean all that much anymore, with Top Two.
The only people who care about the moribund AIP maintaining ‘ballot status’ by attracting ignorant registrants (who don’t provide any votes or donations) are jealous Libertarians, Greens, Peace & Freedom members, etc., who wish that they too had such an advantage.”
I don’t really care that much, except for when AIP members beat their chests and brag about how many voter registrations they have, because reality is that most people who are registered under that banner have no idea what it is.
I’d actually rather people register to vote under the AIP banner than under the banner of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
FYI, the Top Two Primary law that passed in California does require parties to maintain at least 103,000 and something registrations (it is based on the number of people who voted for Governor or President or something like that) in order to maintain ballot status. The AIP has the 3rd highest number of registered voters in California, so they are way above the minimum needed for ballot status, but this is only because most of the people registered under that banner have no idea what it is.
So what’s the harm?
1. People can still vote however they like, despite their registration.
2. Maintaining ballot registration doesn’t even mean all that much anymore, with Top Two.
The only people who care about the moribund AIP maintaining “ballot status” by attracting ignorant registrants (who don’t provide any votes or donations) are jealous Libertarians, Greens, Peace & Freedom members, etc., who wish that they too had such an advantage.
In the real world, in terms of actual impact, it matters not one wit whether the AIP maintains its ballot status or not, or whether they have a million registrants or a dozen. They’ve been on the ballot for decades, and nothing has come of it. No media attention, no political impact, nothing. Almost no one even knows that they exist — not even their own registrants.
“Richard Winger April 1, 2014 at 12:33 pm
The California voter registration form was redesigned in 2010. It has a question 14, “Do you want to choose a political party preference?” On the left is a block, and next to it, in bold type, is ‘No party preference.’ In smaller print, it says, ‘No, I do not want to choose a political party preference.’ On the right is “Yes” with a checkbox. It then says, “my political party preference is (check one) and it has checkboxes for all the qualified parties. There are 7 parties listed. So, I don’t think that voters who register into AIP, starting in 2010, are confused. I think they like the idea of being part of a party that apparently holds itself out as representing independent voters.”
Yeah, I know about the change to the California voter registration form in 2010. I worked on petitions and voter registration in California in 2010 and in 2011 (prior to this, I did this in California in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and in 2005). I think that a lot of people registering to vote and checking the American Independent Party box from 2010 until now are still confused. A lot of them still don’t know that it is a party (note that not everyone reads the voter registration form closely), and for those that think that it is a party that represents independent voters, this is very vague and does not really represent the views of the American Independent Party.
I meant “data”, not “date”, in my last sentence.
The California voter registration form was redesigned in 2010. It has a question 14, “Do you want to choose a political party preference?” On the left is a block, and next to it, in bold type, is “No party preference.” In smaller print, it says, “No, I do not want to choose a political party preference.” On the right is “Yes” with a checkbox. It then says, “my political party preference is (check one) and it has checkboxes for all the qualified parties. There are 7 parties listed. So, I don’t think that voters who register into AIP, starting in 2010, are confused. I think they like the idea of being part of a party that apparently holds itself out as representing independent voters.
The IVN article that is linked to above is very inaccurate when it claims that AIP is the fastest growing party by registration. The last two voter registration tallies put out by the Cal. Sec. of State are Feb. 2013 and Dec. 31, 2013. They show that during those 10 months, AIP lost 7,000 members. By contrast, Peace & Freedom gained 14,000 and Libertarian gained 3,000. The author of the IVN piece, Shawn Griffiths, didn’t even look at the date before he wrote the piece.
Unfortunately I have to concede that that is the case in California, though the leaders of the AIP are well aware of it, though are not bothered by it at all.
I wouldn’t be either, especially if having high numbers keeps you on the ballot in your state.
We have a similar situation in Oregon with “The Independent Party”
“California citizens should be cautious when they register to vote. According to the grassroots campaign, Don’t Be AIPrl_Fooled, hundreds of thousands of Californians have registered as members of the American Independent Party (AIP) believing that by doing so they are registering “independent” of any party or any single ideology.”
During the course of working on petition drives in California, I assisted thousands of people in registering to vote. Almost everyone who checked the American Independent Party box on the voter registration form had no idea that it was a political party, as they thought that they were registering as independents. If one wants to register as an independent in California, they are supposed to check the box that says Decline To State A Political Party. When I told people that American Independent Party was an actual political party, and if they wanted to be registered as independents, they needed to check the Decline To State A Political Party box, some of them requested another voter registration form, but others would say something like, “The heck with it, I’m in a hurry.” and they left the form with themselves being registered under the American Independent Party banner even though they did not support that party.
American Independent Party voter registration is way overinflated in California. They actually have less real support than the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. I’m not sure how their real support compares to the Peace and Freedom Party, which is another ballot qualified party in California, but whatever it is, it is not as high as their voter registration difference would suggest. The American Independent Party does have more real support than Americans Elect, which I believe is still a ballot qualified party in California, but this does not say much, especially considering that I don’t think that there have every actually been any American Elect candidates on the ballot in California.