4 Years… 700,000 More Voters
(Sorry for the long absence with all of last month's big political news... as mentioned before, the new little one in the family has kept me away from the hustle and bustle. Look for more frequent blog entries this month! --JM)
Secretary of State Debra Bowen's new report on the number of registered voters in California shows a healthy uptick in the size of the registered electorate from the 2004 presidential race: 700,000 more voters.
But the even more interesting stat may be that some 240,000 new voters have signed up just since December. The conventional wisdom, of course, is that this could be driven by the high interest in this year's race for the White House.
And if that's true, most folks have signed up to weigh in on the Democratic presidential primary. Today's report shows that for every 1 new Republican voter since December, there were almost 4 new Democratic voters.
Still, independent voters, those who "decline to state" a party affiliation, are the fastest growing segment of registered voters. And while these voters can cast a ballot next Tuesday in the Democratic primary, they cannot do so in the GOP contest... due to a decision by party leaders to close their contest to independent voters.
Total California voter registration, per the new report (which can be read here): 15,712,753.
