In 2006 there were 2,709,959 Kentuckians registered to vote in the primary. In 2008 there were 2,857,231. In the 2008 general, there were 2,906,809 registered.
For this year’s primary there are just 2,851,996 people registered to vote.
From the Secretary of State’s office:
Registration figures continued to show little change in the percentage of male and female voters with females representing nearly 53% of the registration population and males representing 47%. In terms of party registration, Democrats, Republicans, and “Others” decreased their number of registered voters by 2.65%, 0.85%, and 0.91% since November of 2008, respectively. Democrats decreased their voters by 44,082 to 1,618,011. Republicans decreased their voters by 8,999 to 1,044,872. “Others” decreased their voters by 1,732 to 189,113.
Republicans and “Others” increased their percentages of the Kentucky voter rolls as they now comprise 36.64% and 6.63% of Kentucky voters, respectively. That is an increase of 0.38% and 0.06% since the 2008 general election, respectively. Democrats saw their percentage decrease 0.41% since the 2008 general election to 56.77%. Those percentages have set records in modern Kentucky history with Republicans and Independents being higher than ever before and Democrats being lower.
Compared to the 2006 primary election registration figures, there has been a net increase of 142,007 in total voters, or 5.24%; 69,568 in Democratic voters, or 4.49%; 55,373 in Republican voters, or 5.60%; and 17,096 “other” voters, or 9.94%. Democrats, Republicans, and “Others” represented 57.14%, 36.51%, and 6.35% of the electorate in May of 2006, respectively. Since May of 2006, the percentage of the electorate has changed -0.37% for Democrats, 0.13% for Republicans, and 0.28% for “Others” as compared to current percentages of Kentucky registered voters.
Sucks that the numbers are down. But it’s kind of nice to see “others” increasing as more and more people become disenfranchised with the corrupt political party system in Kentucky.
6 responses so far ↓
1 E // Apr 30, 2010 at 3:07 pm
I agree wholeheartedly with your ending comment!
2 ctk // Apr 30, 2010 at 3:37 pm
am i registered? absolutely.
am i registered to vote in the primary? no. why? because the legislators who belong to both political parties won’t open up the process to those who don’t belong to either one of the major parties. i have sent messages to both my state rep and senator about opening up the primaries to the unaffiliated voters to let them choose their primary ballot and both of them said that both parties are comfortable with the process as it is now.
i wonder how they get to that conculsion especially now that there are more unaffiliated voters then there were a few years ago.
3 Larry West // Apr 30, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Opening up the primaries to Independents will cause both parties to lose memberships as people will register Independent in order to get the right to vote in either primary — which might result in people voting in the party they disagree with for the weaker candidate in order to get their candidate a better chance in the fall. For example, could you imagine all the Republicans voting for Connie Marshall in order to increase Heiner or Thieneman’s chances? Or Democrats voting for the weakest Republican in order to increase Yarmuth’s chances? Or Rush Limbaugh urging his listeners to vote for Hillary in order to require Obama to spend more money on the primaries (that actually happened, but not in Kentucky)?
The answer, I feel, is to lower the threshhold on what is a party — most states have several more recognized parties (I think Florida has 19 parties, Delaware only requires 400 or so voters). That way, if the Republican and Democratic Party do not represent what you believe, you have other alternatives than “Independent.”
4 E // Apr 30, 2010 at 8:03 pm
That’s an idea!…but good luck getting the dems and reps to give the same rights to other parties, they’re going to cling to their advantage until it no longer serves their self serving interests.
5 ctk // May 1, 2010 at 3:19 am
sure you could lower the voting threshold, but there are some people (myself for instance) that don’t vote and would never vote a straight party ticket. have never and would never vote party. i vote people, and it just so happens that the people for whom i am voting for are a part of the same party.
some people registered independent because they are not interested in joining a political party. this is why i favor unaffiliated voters being able to choose their ballot. the system doesn’t have to be completely opened. and if there are some people in the democratic or republican parties who would be likely to encourage “mischief” in the other’s primary let it be known that the same could occur in their own primary. i think that is enough of a risk factor to mitigate such problems. because what happens when batsqueeze crazy on both sides in a semi-open primary vote for and end up nominating the other’s crazy or unknown candidate?
i think there will come a point when both parties will have pissed off enough of their own party to where a semi-open primary becomes more likely.
6 E // May 1, 2010 at 8:53 am
It still gets back to the fact that a vote is the pinnacle of freedom of speech, and who are we or any political party to decide to limit or abridge that speech? Why can’t a person choose to use their constitutional right to vote to vote against someone?
Why do the parties seem to operate under the premise that you must vote FOR someone?
Are they that afraid of the voters that they must limit their choices and voices?
Perhaps if the independent voters could vote in primaries, the politicians wouldn’t behave like such a bunch of jack-offs…knowing that although there are loyal votes they can count on, there would be many more votes that could go against them…say like if they couldn’t pass a budget?
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