TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• CALIFORNIA: Low turnout as most vote by mail (Contra Costa Times) The growing ranks of independent voters who eschew party registration has also drained interest in primaries, where parties select their nominees, Alexander said. "Almost 20 percent of the state's voters are decline-to-state and they literally didn't have a dog in this fight," Alexander added.
• IDAHO: Demos could storm GOP primary (Deseret News) And 56 percent of all Utah voters are officially unaffiliated

REFORM
R.I. poll: Most favor scrapping Electoral College, electing presidents directly (Providence Journal)

MEDIA
Voters Give Media Failing Grades in Objectivity for Election 2008 (Rasmussen Reports)


OPEN PRIMARIES

WASHINGTON:

• BIAW's paid media attack campaign against Governor Gregoire has begun (NW Progressive Institute Official Blog) One ad even attempted to blame Gregoire for the open (or pick a party) primary system first used by the state in 2004.
• Washington State Primary Has No Function in 3/4ths of Legislative Races (Ballot Access News)

FLORIDA: Kenric Ward: Gaming the system through one-party rule (Treasure Coast Palm) There are ways to get around this disenfranchisement. Many states hold open primaries, allowing voters to decide which contests they want to cast ballots in. An even cleaner alternative would be to make county offices nonpartisan (as they are for cities and school boards).

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

CAMPAIGN

• Gas Tax Moves to Front of Democratic Battle (To The Center) Indiana's Democratic primary is open to Republican and independent voters. While 44 percent polled said they would vote Democrat regardless the winner at the Democratic National Convention, reports the Globe, 38 percent will vote for McCain in November.
• Clinton and Obama prepare for the primaries, so are the punters (Online Gambling Paper) Odds are...
• Obama faces big tests in North Carolina, Indiana (Reuters)

NORTH CAROLINA

• Three Republicans vie to challenge Shuler (Asheville Citizen Times) registered Democrats (195,661), outnumber registered Republicans (166,546). But another 121,582 voters are unaffiliated, according to the N.C. Board of Elections.
• Polls open in N.C.; some long lines reported (Charlotte Observer) Statewide, 25,296 registered N.C. voters switched to either Democrat or unaffiliated during the first three months of 2008. Just under 6,000 switched to Republican.
• Young voters getting engaged with politics (Charlotte Observer) trend shows that young adults are increasingly identifying themselves as "independent" or "unaffiliated."

INDIANA
Conflicting Polls As Obama Clinton Head Into Indiana North Carolina Primary (The Moderate Voice)

WEST VIRGINIA
Counties throughout W.Va. must clean up their voter registration rolls (The Herald-Dispatch) The counties with the highest percentages of independents are Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Mineral and Monongalia.

Mississippi moves Obama

CNN has called Mississippi for Barack Obama.

Blacks, who have supported Obama in overwhelming numbers in earlier primaries, accounted for roughly half the ballots cast in Mississippi, according to interviews with voters leaving polling places. Nearly one in five Democratic primary voters called himself an independent. About one in 10 was Republican. (Associated Press)

Mississippi has no registration by party so voters can choose which primary to vote in. Not surprisingly, the exit poll found turnout was more than twice as high in the competitive Democratic primary between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama than in the Republican primary, where John McCain has clinched the nomination. Nearly one in five Democratic primary voters called themselves independent and about one in 10 were Republican. Democrats and independents combined were about 10 percent of voters in the GOP contest. (Associated Press)


Turnout so-so as Miss. voters pull levers: A close race between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama will draw more voters to the polls today than the last presidential primary, state officials predict.... "We shouldn't be fooling in (the Democrats') business ... because we've got enough to deal with," said Herring, adding that crossover voting also would hinder a two-party system that political leaders have tried to foster.
A federal judge ruled last year that Mississippians re-register to vote by party affiliation. Or, he said voters could register as unaffiliated with any party. His decision came after Mississippi Democrats filed a lawsuit seeking to bar Republicans from voting in Democratic primaries. The 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals is reviewing the decision. (Clarion Ledger)

The Republican/Independent/White Vote: There's another reason to doubt that Obama could put Mississippi, which voted for Bush 60-40 over Kerry in 2004, into play this November: racial polarization. "Anything in Mississippi that would so animate black voters would probably have the effect of animating white voters in the opposite direction," Bositis told me back in November. The pre-primary polls suggest that he's right. Obama typically loses white voters to Clinton by five to 20 points; in the latest InsiderAdvantage survey, he loses by 53. Similarly, Obama's traditional edge among Republicans and Independents--often two- or three-to-one--is reduced in the poll to deficits of 68-29 percent and 53-23, respectively. And this is among likely Democratic primary voters. Needless to say, such "Deep South" margins don't bode well for Obama's chances with the general electorate, which was 47 percent Republican and 63 percent white in 2004. It'll be interesting to see if they hold up tonight--and possibly help Clinton finish stronger than expected. (Newsweek)

California: Independents Rule!

Independents Rule Three Big Liberal Counties (LA Times Blog) You can see why conservatives in the California Republican Party won't allow decline-to-state independents to vote in their presidential primary next year. The GOP has effectively closed its Feb. 5, 2008, presidential ballot to party members only, to avoid mischief or undue influence from people who aren't true believers. The Democratic Party is, however, allowing decline-to-state voters inside the tent.

Although independent voters hold a wide variety of political viewpoints, the San Francisco, Marin and Alameda county voting blocs are rather large and could indeed favor moderate GOP candidates. That is, if those independent voters 1) were allowed to participate in the Republican presidential primary and 2) didn't want to vote in the equally exciting Democratic presidential race. Not a single Top 10 Republican county shows up in the Top 10 list of decline-to-state counties, but three big-and-liberal Bay Area counties are cross-pollinating between Democratic and independent....

Where's Obama at with black voters, leadership?

S.C.'s black voters in national spotlight By WAYNE WASHINGTON wwashington@thestate.com: Barack Obama could be on the cusp of history as the nation's first black president. .....Jackson, who supported Edwards during his 2004 run for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he and other black voters like what the former senator is saying.
"He's saying all of the right things, but how much will that matter?" Jackson asked, noting the Democrats' 2004 John Kerry- Edwards ticket ultimately was unsuccessful. "There are a lot of African-American voters who want to win."... (The State)

California: Will Repubs open their primary?

Speakers decline to endorse candidates at Democratic fundraiser, By Karen Holzmeister, Inside Bay Area ...Now the question is whether Republicans will open the party's presidential primary to millions of independent voters, a move that could benefit Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
State Democrats already permit independents to vote in their presidential primaries. ...

West Virginia Dems will allow independents to vote in their primary

Democrats continue to hold about a 2-1 margin in registered voters statewide, but the number of independents has been growing until they accounted for 11.7 percent of total number of registered voters in the 2006 general election amounting to 133,555.
In the 1996 general election, independent and other registrations added up to 66,339 or 6.8 percent of registered voters.
While the total number of registered voters grew by 15 percent between 1996 and 2006, the number of independents grew by a little more than 50 percent.... (The Journal News)

California: Dems want independents to vote in their primary

Dems welcome independent voters, by John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle: If California's independent voters want a voice in next year's presidential primary, they better start paying attention to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic candidates.
While the nearly 20 percent of California voters who register as decline to state will be welcome in the Democratic presidential primary, they will be barred from casting a ballot for any of the Republican presidential hopefuls. ....

You have to be at least a little suspicious! It's still a partisan game...