[WestMALocals] Green Party Voter Registration & Ballot Status
History
kate harris
kate at earthlovers.org
Thu Jul 21 09:41:14 EDT 2005
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 23:48:59 -0700
From: Mike Feinstein <mfeinstein at feinstein.org>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracking Green Growth
Green Party Voter Registration & Ballot Status History
http://web.greens.org/stats
The first ever-comprehensive compilation and analysis of
- Green voter registration totals, 1986 to the present
- Green Party state ballot status efforts, 1988 to the present
By Mike Feinstein
Santa Monica, California
Released July 20th, 2005
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear fellow Green,
Welcome to the first ever, comprehensive, all-time Green Party
Voter Registration & Ballot Status study and web site:
http://web.greens.org/stats
This site features a data base containing every Green voter registration
total available, from every state government, in every state where it
has been possible to register Green (and where the government has
tracked the number.) The database contains approximately 850
separate data entries of Green voter registration, dating back to the
first Greens registered in the nation, in California in 1986.
Accompanying this effort is a comprehensive history of the ballot
qualification efforts in every state in which a Green Party has
attempted to achieve ballot status.
Together, this is the first time both of these kinds of information have
been tracked in a comprehensive way and featured in a single place.
This information, together with that available on
http://www.greens.org/elections, provides a powerful tool to track
and understand Green growth in America.
Please check out the site, and provide feedback on its design,
functionality and content!
Note - the site is not completely finished. Normally I would’ve
waited another week to release it. But I wanted to get this to
you before Tulsa, because I think its important for us to have
this information, while we look forward this weekend to where
we want to go in the future.
(In reality, there are still a few things that need to be fixed in the
database, and a few state histories to be more fully elaborated.
Please feel free to call out any ‘bugs’ or offer suggestions on content.)
In the near future, I will be doing a fuller report/analysis on our
voter registration trends. But for now, what follows is a brief
overview, based upon the contents of this new study.
For more information, also explore the pull-down menus on the left
hand column of the web site. These contain the periodic Green
registration totals for each state and the nation.
Enjoy!
Mike Feinstein
Santa Monica, CA
http://www.feinstein.org
Green Party Voter Registration Trends A Quick Review
1) Annual totals, April-to-April, 1996-present
For this first comparison, April was chosen for two reasons. One is that
November election campaign cycles often begin in the spring, so its good
to start with April and then look forward. Two, voter rolls are usually
‘cleaned’ in the winter/spring after a November election, of out-of-date
registrations. So looking at Aprils can provide a ‘clean’ number to
start and end with.
1996 was chosen as a starting year, to coincide with the first national
(Presidential) Green Party campaign.
4/30/96 92,674
4/30/97 112,690 +20,016 (21.6%)
4/30/98 113,130 + 440 (00.4%)
4/30/99 120,302 + 7,172 (06.3%)
4/30/00 139,354 +19,052 (15.8%)
4/30/01 217,296 +77,942 (55.6%)
4/30/02 242,850 +25,554 (11.8%)
4/30/03 282,750 +39,900 (16.4%)
4/30/04 298,055 +15,305 (05.4%)
4/30/05 310,015 +11,960 (04.0%)
(note, the 4/30/98 number is missing the Nevada total, which we are
still awaiting from the Secretary of State’s office there. That will add
approximately another 500 registrations, making the increase about
1,000, rather than the 440)
2) Annual totals, July to November, Election ‘stretch run’, 1996-present
For this comparison, a July to November period was chosen, because the
build up right before a November election sees the fastest growth. This
is particularly the case in even-numbered years (President, Governor.)
Odd-numbered years are less so.
7/31/96-11/30/96 from 94,033 to 112,968 + 18,935 (20.1%)
7/31/97-11/30/97 from 113,010 to 109,461 - 3,549 (-03.1%)
7/31/98-11/30/98 from 115,446 to 123,622 + 8,176 (07.1%)
7/31/99-11/30/99 from 121,212 to 129,168 + 7,956 (06.6%)
7/31/00-11/30/00 from 141,521 to 202,754 + 61,233 (43.3%)
7/31/01-11/30/01 from 219,718 to 232,316 + 11,699 (05.3%)
7/31/02-11/30/02 from 249,286 to 276,071 + 26,785 (10.3%)
7/31/03-11/30/03 from 286,614 to 301,891 + 15,277 (05.3%)
7/31/04-11/30/04 from 301,423 to 317,765 + 16,342 (05.4%)
Note one caveat with the numbers above for the period 7/31/97 to
11/30/97. In that period, the California numbers went down as a result
of a cleaning of the voter rolls, but the percentage of the overall
total stayed approximately the same. Because California made up so much
of the national total at this time, the overall national total went down
during this period, but should not be construed as a loss of support at
the same time.
3) A Closer Look at the Period from April 2000 to April 2005.
This is the period over our last two presidential campaigns, and also
when we accelerated the growth of new state parties.
Part of the growth over these five years came by adding more registered
Greens in existing states. The other part came by adding more states in
which one can register Green and be counted.
In April 2000, there were approximately 139,354 Greens in 14 states and
the District of Columbia. (AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, LA, ME, MA,
NV, NM, NY, OR)
In April 2005, there were approximately 284,081 Greens in these same
14 states plus D.C. an increase of 144,727 (103.9%) in them over the
five years.
The other 25,960 current registrants (8.4% of the current overall total
and 15.1% of the growth since 2000) came from the other states that
have come on-line since then: IA, MD, NE, NJ, PA, UT and WV.
In the case of Iowa, the party is now off the ballot there, and the state
government ostensibly isn’t accepting new registrations, and most
of the old ones were deleted when the party when off the ballot. But
nevertheless the state still lists 67 registered Greens there. Rhode
Island had 775 registered Greens before they fell off the ballot after
the 11/2004 elections.
When both those states get back on the ballot, that will provide
additional growth opportunities. Of the other states in which one can
theoretically register Green - KY, NH, NC, OK, SD, WY the Green
Party is not yet a strong presence and does not have ballot status.
It should also be noted that there are different incentives to register
Green in different states. In some states, the number of Green
registrants is one of the conditions to obtain/maintain ballot status.
In others, the number of registrants has no connection to a party’s
ballot status, so there is less incentive for the party to reach out
and gain new registrants.
4) Some Caveats in Analyzing Green voter registration numbers
There are many caveats in analyzing Green voter registration numbers.
In addition to the internal Green Party incentive to register people
Green, if it helps the party with its ballot status, there are also basic
technical issues with how each state government complies its numbers.
Different states ‘clean the roles’ in different months, causing state
Green Party totals to sink, without indicating a loss of support for the
party itself (often the percentage of overall voters who are registered
Green remains the same when the rolls are cleaned look for this when
you examine each state's totals in the pull down menu on the web site).
Some state governments only compile totals annually, or a few times
a year. Others do it on a regular monthly basis. This means when
analyzing the national totals, there may be quantum changes in one
direction or another, that embed trends that have occurred over a long
period of time, but show up all at once.
Also, the monthly totals that do come in, often come in late. So when
looking at summer numbers for 2005, for example, there are still
some states that have not reported yet for May or June, even though
we are today in July.
Therefore the national totals for those months will change in the
future, once those lagging states come in. A good example of this
is Maine, which just reported its November 2004 numbers more than
eight months later (with a jump of over 5,000 Greens), changing all of
the national totals since then, and even altering how we analyze those
numbers, given how significant that change was.
5) Rise and Fall of the Percentage of Greens in relation to each
state’s total
Another major caveat in looking at these numbers, is that the overall
number of registered voters across the nation, keeps increasing with
the country’s population.
Therefore looking at the percentage of the overall total in each state
that is Green, is just as important as examining the raw number of Greens.
Below is a quick look at all the states that today have at least 3,000
registrants (except AZ, for which for more up-to-date numbers are still
being sought).
This look shows where these states were in April 2000 (or later, if
they didn’t start registering until later), what was their high point
since then, and where they are now.
AK 4/00 0.72% 10/02 1.05% 4/05 0.89%
CA 4/00 0.74% 01/04 1.09% 4/05 0.95%
CO 4/00 0.06% 06/03 0.20% 4/05 0.16%
DC 4/00 1.09% 06/03 1.40% 4/05 1.33%
FL 4/00 0.01% 08/04 0.07% 4/05 0.06%
ME 4/00 0.24% 11/04 2.36% 4/05 2.36%
MA 4/00 0.01% 10/04 0.23% 4/05 0.23%
MD 9/00 0.02% 09/04 0.24% 4/05 0.24%
NV 4/00 0.11% 02/05 0.32% 4/05 0.31%
NM 4/00 0.97% 11/00 1.20% 4/05 0.86%
NY 4/00 0.03% 11/04 0.35% 4/05 0.32%
OR 4/00 0.08% 12/03 0.78% 4/05 0.64%
PA 4/01 0.03% 05/05 0.20% 5/05 0.20%
Some initial inferences that can be drawn from this. First is that the
Green Party is gaining ground in many states that first achieved (or
regained) ballot status during this period, or simply became better
organized on a state level around 2000 or later like CO, FL, MA, ME,
MD, NV. In these states, there is probably a long growth period before
any of them hit a plateau.
By contrast, these is cause for real concern in some of the key states
that have been around for a long time, that losing ground instead of
gaining it in particular AK, CA, NM and OR.
Each of these states, for many years, has been seen as a place of
Green strength.
But today in each of them, there has been a significant drop from their
highest point to where they are today AK (15.2%), CA (12.8%), NM
(28.3%) and OR (17.9%).
In the other two strongest voter registration states, DC has seen a
smaller drop (5%), while Maine continues to grow, and now is at its
highest point ever.
6) Effects of 2004 presidential race on Green registration totals
I have not yet attempted to specifically analyze how the 2004
presidential race dynamics have played upon the Green Party.
That is a complex issue and can be interpreted from many
angles, and will take much more time to do responsibly.
However for now, it can be first observed that the winter/spring of
2004 saw efforts (by mostly the Dean, Kerry and Kucinich campaigns)
to reregister Greens to vote in the Democratic Party.
The raw numbers below suggest some evidence of this, but not overwhelmingly.
Below is a look at the high national Green voter registration point in
2003 (December 2003, after the November 2003 election), and then
how long it took to get back to that same number of registrants:
11/03 301,891
12/03 302,026
01/04 297,320
02/04 294,694
03/04 296,974
04/04 298,055
05/04 297,677
06/04 300,997
07/04 301,423
08/04 302,070
In analyzing this change, it must be remembered that during this same
period (winter/spring 2004), several states ‘cleaned their voter rolls’ of
outdated voter registrations. So part of this drop is attributable to that
effect.
For comparison, the drop from 12/03 to 2/04 was 7,332 (2.4%), while the
drop from 12/04 to 2/05, was 3,521 (1.1%). Adjusting for the overall
increase of the number of voters from which Greens were drawing, perhaps
the drop in 2004 compared to 2005 is slightly more significant, but not
overwhelmingly so.
An unanswerable question in this analysis is, "how many new Green
registrations during these periods came in, compared to how many
existing Green ‘unregistered’ from the Green Party and into another?"
And with that question, I leave you to make your own speculations. Enjoy.
More information about the WestMALocals
mailing list