There are now almost a million fewer Californians who are registered to vote than there were just two years ago. Meantime, the number of independent voters continues to grow.

Those are some of the findings in the voter registration stats released today by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. That report calculates that there were almost 15.7 million registered voters in the state as of early February, compared to about 16.6 million registered voters at the same time in 2005.

In a news release, Bowen says part of the change can be attributed to now having a more accurate roll of registered voters than existed in years past. That means removing people who have died, moved out of state, or been deemed as ineligible to vote.

Even so, she says, the population of eligible voters continues to grow… but the actual numbers of voters isn’t keeping up.

The data also shows that Democrats continue to outnumber Republicans (42.5% of voters to almost 34.2% of voters, respectively). But both parties continue to lose members… while the number of voters who register as “decline to state” continues to grow– now, almost 19% of all registered voters.

You can read the full report here.