The shake-up in voter options that began with Ross Perot's bid for the 1992 Presidency didn't end with his abrupt retreat - far from it. Perot's earlier efforts to lead America's Executive Branch of our [three-tier] government lit a flame that offered an alternate perspective. Suddenly the aperture view for Main-Street was able to see opened wider.
*Where IS this third-party? It's the growing number of Registered Independents, hidden in plain sight.
This voting block has expanded to comprise close to 40% of all registered voters. People who were once tethered to either a straight liberal ideology or straight conservative ideology found a greater balance and breathing room by embracing the best of both. This is forcing more and more people seeking public office to realize they can't count on following only liberal or only conservative poling numbers to gauge their popularity.
But even nonpartisan fact-tanks like the Pew Research Institute struggles to make [factual] sense of statistics when there is also statistics within statistics. For example, within the Republican Party there are those who lean toward some liberal policy ideas and in the Democratic Party there are those who lean toward some conservative policy ideas. It may appear contradictory, but regardless of registered voter designation, Main Street still has [for the most part] two choices, so Pew [and others] labelling Registered Independent voters as either Republican-Leaners or Democratic-Leaners isn't as accurate as they report.
*Confused? That's entirely understandable...
I spent [daze] all over the World-Wide-Web gathering the kind of information I thought might help me/you/us - make sense of the massive, volcanic social shift between the 2016 federal election, the 2020 mid-term election and several state elections. My statistics soon had statistics too, because over the years, due to circumstances [increased immigration, eroding public school education standards, with arbitrary tweaking of social programs and industry standards] changed like the weather!
VOTING BY MAIL...Do we truly know 'who' is voting? The numbers vary slightly, but to date an estimated 5,000,000 asylum seekers have crossed into the United States over the last 29 months. Yikes!
In the mix of people truly persecuted in their home country due to: race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion - we also have identified terrorists, criminals like the mentally insane, rapists, thieves, as well as unaccompanied minors from orphanages, then Russian, Iranian and Chinese spies and organized cartel members...Nice huh... Except - of those who applied for asylum as a defense against deportation only 39% met even a basic definition: Asylum is available to individuals who cannot or will not go back to their home countries because they do not feel they will be safe. That's less than half folks! Actually, less than that because for the fiscal year 2022 overwhelmed immigration judges only decided 52,000 cases...
With the level of computing technology available today, why are so many deceased individuals still showing up on voting lists? Disturbingly, it's far too easy for illegal immigrants to assume the paper-identity of a former citizen no longer living. Either due to staffing shortages, negligence or indifference, numerous cities and towns in counties in too many states do not maintain accurate demographic records. All utility companies certainly do, so perhaps dithering officials with antiquated record keeping systems can update their demographics from utility customer lists before printing any ballots prior to elections. Just a thought...
LEANERS vs INDEPENDENTS... By defining a certain percentage of voters as Democratic-Leaners or Republican-Leaners -- are those worried about the unmistakable swing 'away' from set dogma to open options of a middle ground selection -- seeking to marginalize the Registered Independent voter as inconsequential? It's easy cake for either a Democratic or Republican political candidate seeking reelection or a first term to appear at organized rallies of other Democrats or Republicans. Not - so easy if a rally must be held in constituencies with a 3/3 or unknown mix. Gosh, someone might ask tough, uncomfortable questions or not cheer at your over worked, tired sales pitch. Wow, someone seeking a public office might actually need to be informed, accountable and answerable... Imagine that!
According to USA Facts, the number of eligible voters over the age of 18 in 2022 totaled 255,457,000 [M]. So, Fellow Travelers, if we tap into that number at 40% - that's about 114,955,965 voters [give or take] who are anything except inconsequential and anyone/everyone seeking to 'serve' in any public office should heed that fact.
*Critically now, greater than ever, those who are Registered Independents need stay their chosen course.
However, as America's early decades came and went - with other countries abolishing slavery - it was the debate over slavery that initiated the rise of the Democratic Party [January 1828 to argue slavery should be left to the states] The 13th and 14th Amendments of the brand new ratified constitution that kept the debate a moral issue ultimately produced the Republican Party [1854] to halt any further expansion of slavery into the territories of newly formed states.
13th Amendment Section 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 14th Amendment Section 1 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
