AI Increases Registration, LP Has Biggest Slate

Under California law a party is qualified to participate in primary (and thus also general) elections if 1) it achieves as many registrants as 1% of the voter turnout in the last regular gubernatorial election, or 2) had a statewide candidate win a 2% share in that election. Here are the registration numbers and statewide vote totals for the minor parties that have been ballot-qualified in any of the last five election cycles. The turnout of the 2006 gubernatorial election (7,603,742) has set the 1% threshold at 76,038, which is reflected in the percentages shown in the 2008 column below.

Registrants in 1000s	2000-10	2002-09	2004-09	2006-09	2008-09
Decline To State	2256	2253	2671	2900	3151
American Independent	296	296	304	309	334 (4.4%)
Green	139	147	156	140	116 (1.5%)
Libertarian	95	89	86	82	79 (1.04%)
Peace and Freedom	[?]	70	67	59	55
Natural Law	58	45	29	22	[?]
Reform	79	59	[46]	[32]	[26]

Brackets indicate lack of ballot qualification that year. Question mark indicates that party was not even listed as attempting to qualify, and so the Secretary of State didn't report any registration figures.

Votes in %	2002 Gov	2002 SecState	2004 Sen	2004 Pres	2006 Gov
American Independent	1.7	1.2	0.6	0.2	0.6
Green	5.2	3.9		0.3	2.3
Libertarian	2.1	2.8	1.7	0.5	1.4
Peace and Freedom			2.1	0.2	0.7
Natural Law	1.1	2.4
Reform		1

In the 2004 Presidential election, AIP's vote in California was just 8% of its registered base, compared to 56% for the LP, 25% for the Greens, and 40% for P&F. This tends to confirm the judgment of analysts who say that AIP's registration numbers are inflated by voters trying to register as Decline To State. Despite an increase in voter registration (which suspiciously mirrors the increase in Decline To State, while all other parties are down), American Independent is running only one candidate this year:

	Libertarian	Green	Peace and Freedom	American Independent
U.S. House	20	4	4	1
CA Senate	5	0	1	0
CA Assembly	15	1	2	0