Party by the Numbers

Republicans Outnumber Democrats, and the Rock and Roll Party Does a Solo

It’s illegal to peek over anyone’s shoulder in the ballot box, but here’s how the SLO County vote might tally:

• A single individual in SLO County is registered in the Rock and Roll political party. (Who writes the platform for that one?) The Puritan Party and the Real American Party also number one registered voter apiece.

• The U.S. Taxpayers, National, New Economy, and Environmentalist parties have two members apiece.

• Numbers of voters registered in the Socialist Labor, Central, and La Raza Unida parties numbers break into two digits.

• SLO County has hundreds of registered voters each in the Independent, Peace and Freedom, Reform, and Natural Law parties.

• Registered Republicans (62,452) outnumber Democrats (51,824). Third parties such as the American Independent (3,402) and the Green Party (2,173) trail behind.

Altogether, 143,556 people registered to vote in SLO County by the Oct. 10 deadline this year. That means that 7,680 more people in the county registered for this year’s election than for the last Presidential election in 1996.

Of course, voters are not obligated to vote for candidates of the parties they registered in.

If the Green Party ticket of Nader and LaDuke gets five percent of the vote, the party qualifies for future federal matching funds. Vote Green, party leaders ask, so that "more resources will be available to build a strong third-party alternative to challenge the two-party duopoly."

Registration rolls are not conclusive indicators of how many people will actually vote. About 75 percent of voters registered here actually turn in a ballot, according to records at the SLO County-Clerk Recorder’s office.

Absentee ballots are also becoming increasingly popular, according to County Clerk-Recorder Julie L. Rodewald. In fact, residents in rural areas of the county where there are less than 250 people registered in a precinct receive absentee ballots whether they want one or not, because it’s not economical to open a polling location for so few voters.

"We receive an average of 1,000 requests for absentee ballots daily, and as many as 2,000 requests a day during the week before the election," she said. Absentee voters don't have to wait until Election Day to vote. They just have to wait for the results. Æ