Heading into this month’s primary election there are at least 612,000 more Democrats than Republicans eligible to vote, Division of Elections figures released Monday show.
On the last day on which voters could register in time to be eligible to vote in the Aug. 24 primary, there were 4,610,771 Democrats – about 41 percent of the electorate – and 3,997,998 Republicans, about 36 percent of the electorate, the state figures show. There are about 2.1 million voters with no party affiliation.
In all, the state has 11.1 million registered voters, down a little more than 125,000 since the 2008 election.
The Democrats’ advantage among active voters is smaller than it was in 2008, when excitement over the candidacy of Barack Obama, the beginnings of the economic downturn, and the war in Iraq were seen as pushing a jump in Democratic voter registration around the country.
Democrats say the advantage may actually be a bit larger – the count released by state officials Monday doesn’t include “inactive voters” who have been provisionally flagged for possible removal from the rolls because they don’t appear to live at their last known address any longer and haven’t changed their address. Those people are still eligible to vote, though if they don’t, they’ll be removed from the rolls. Many are presumed to have moved out of state, or died.
Noting that more than 100,000 people marked as “inactive” ended up voting in 2008, a Democratic Party spokesman said Monday that the party believes it may have the same voter registration advantage it had two years ago of almost 750,000.
In the year of the outsider – with Charlie Crist running for Senate as an independent and Bud Chiles running for governor with no party – the number of “no party affiliation” voters has increased, but only slightly. At book closing last month, there were 2,154,818 NPA voters, compared to 2,103,119 in 2008.
The latest registration figures show that there were 7.6 million white voters, while black and Hispanic voters are nearly even, with about 1.4 million in each group.
Among the minor parties, the two confusingly similarly-named parties that imply independence from the major parties – the Independent Party of Florida and the Independence Party of Florida – are the only two minor parties with more than 50,000 voters. The Independent Party of Florida has about 260,000 voters, while the Independence Party has just over 57,000 voters.
The only other party with more than 10,000 voters is the Libertarian Party with 17,522.
By David Royse
The News Service of Florida
