http://ballot-access.org/2021/02/11/new-pennsylvania-registration-data-2/
Pennsylvania Elections Department has released the first registration totals for any minor parties since February 2020. The new figures are: Democratic 4,075,927; Republican 3,458,241; Libertarian 46,037; Green 10,240; independent and miscellaneous 1,222,818.
The percentages are: Democratic 46.25%; Republican 39.24%; Libertarian .52%; Green .12%; independent and miscellaneous 13.87%.
In February 2020, the percentages were: Democratic 47.45%; Republican 38.19%; Libertarian .47%; Green .12%; independent and miscellaneous 13.77%.
The 2021 registration numbers above are as of February 1st I think.
As a longtime reader of Ballot Access News which has always reported these numbers when they are released, I'm amused by the media's and this message board's sudden interest in politcal party registration as well as how they only report one side of it. We're completely ignoring how over 1 year the Democrats are down more than 1% and the Republicans are up more than 1%.
People on this board I expect to be one-eyed, journalists however should be held to a higher standard. I might be in the mood to call journalists out for being water carriers.
If you read the article, it's all based on data. It's just going off of the normal trends. The data says there IS more of a switch off than usual, and it compares numerous years past. General registration trends are still going on in PA, but the fact that are so many *switchers* is notable
Right but what StateBoiler is saying is that this change is not particularly relevant. If over merely the last year Rs are up and Ds are down even after accounting for this effect, then why wasn’t the story ever about Rs gaining in PA?
Yes the capital riots had an impact on this, but clearly it was a small one and most likely many of those switching were voting for Biden already.
I do think the riots had a decent impact, actually, but it can’t be measured by voter registration changes of this kind - this magnitude of change is not really notable or worth a news article. What would be more interesting would be to see how independent registrants changed their opinions on the parties pre- and post-riot - I’ll bet that would give actual good news to Ds whereas these numbers are honestly basically a mirage.
