News

August 19, 2008

Few voters switching parties

Officials: If voters changed to Dem party for Obama-Clinton, most have not switched back.

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter
Jennifer Learn-Andes on Facebook   |   @TLJenLearnAndes on Twitter

Most voters who changed political parties for the primary election haven’t switched back to their original parties as officials had predicted, Luzerne County Election Board members learned Monday.

Statistics released Monday show 4,114 voters switched political parties between the November 2007 general election and the April 22 primary. That included 3,315 changes to Democrat and 559 to Republican.

In comparison, only 1,099 party switches have occurred from the day after the primary election to date. That includes 570 changes to Democrat and 279 to Republican.

“Of that number of people who switched into the Democratic Party, we’re not seeing large numbers going back to a previous party, which we thought we might see and which might’ve increased our workload,” Election Bureau Director Leonard Piazza told the board.

Officials attributed the pre-primary switching to an interest in voting in presidential races, particularly the Democratic contest between New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Pennsylvania does not have open primaries, which meant third-party voters couldn’t vote on presidential candidates unless they were registered Democrat or Republican. Also, Republicans had to switch to Democrat if they wanted to vote in the Clinton/Obama race.

Voters are free to choose candidates of any political party in the general election, regardless of their own affiliation.

Piazza did not have a record of the original political parties of the voters who switched.

Oct. 6 is the deadline to register to vote or to change political parties for the Nov. 4 general election.

As of Monday, the county had 181,563 registered voters, including 59,824 Republicans and 107,755 Democrats.

Roughly 8,338 of these voters have registered since the November 2007 primary, Piazza said.

Party registration

PARTY TOTALS

Democratic: 107,755

Republican: 59,824

No affiliation: 10,677

Independent: 1,982

Libertarian: 590

Green: 406

Constitution: 69

Other: 260

Total: 181,563

Tweet	Follow @TLnews