Can You Register As Neither Democrat Or Republican

A voter marks a ballot for the New Hampshire primary Feb. 9 inside a voting berth at a polling place in Manchester, N.H. David Goldman/AP hibernate caption

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David Goldman/AP

A voter marks a ballot for the New Hampshire primary Feb. 9 inside a voting booth at a polling identify in Manchester, Northward.H.

David Goldman/AP

Independent Voters In Colorado, Florida And Arizona

The biggest group of voters politicians will take to woo this November are the ones who oftentimes don't get a say in which candidates make it to the general election ballot.

Turned off by the partisan wars in Washington, 39 percent of voters now place themselves as independent rather than affiliated with 1 of the two major political parties, co-ordinate to a 2014 analysis by the Pew Enquiry Center. Self-identified Democrats accounted for 32 percent of the electorate, Republicans 23 pct.

That's a big shift from equally recently equally 2004, when the electorate was nearly evenly divided into thirds past the 3 groups.

But many states require voters to chapter with a party in social club to take part in presidential primaries and caucuses.

NPR checked in with several fellow member station reporters to see what the ascension of independent voters means in dissimilar parts of the state.

Colorado: Young Voters Flex Political Muscles

Colorado's more than 1 million officially unaffiliated voters now outnumber Republicans and Democrats in the country. Both parties have about 900,000 registered voters.

Many are under the historic period of 35, the millennial generation. Colorado has the second-fastest-growing millennial population in the state, and, past far, the most as a proportion of the population of any swing state.

To get a sense of their political power, consider the fact that more Republicans voted in the 2012 elections than Democrats. Republican Mitt Romney should accept been the favorite, "only as it was, the unaffiliated probably washed out that difference and so created the winning margin for Obama," said Judd Choate, who runs the elections partition for the Colorado secretary of state's office.

That winning margin was thanks in part to voters like Sara Heisdorffer. The 24-year-erstwhile lives in the Denver suburb of Westminster. Like many of her friends, neither the Democratic nor the Republican party interests her.

"People my age volition hate me for saying this," said Heisdorffer. "Merely it's kind of that special snowflake thing that millennials get crap for all the time I think."

Neither party aligns with Heisdorffer's views, which she describes as socially liberal and fiscally moderate. Like many unaffiliated voters, however, she'south not necessarily independent and generally votes for Democrats.

It's a long-running design to come across younger voters of any generation non identify with political parties.

"Younger people tend to exist less likely to affiliate with parties than older people," said Jocelyn Kiley, a researcher with the Pew Inquiry Center. But "this is every bit pronounced every bit it's ever been."

Millennials are shunning political parties at an even greater rate than previous generations did, in part due to political dysfunction.

"People requite some of the virtually negative ratings of either party that we've seen in the last 20 years," said Kiley.

Merely these trends may be changing this election. Since September, 30,535 voters accept registered with the Colorado Autonomous political party.

That includes voters such as Curtis Haverkamp, who attended a Bernie Sanders rally a few months dorsum. At the rally, he learned unaffiliated voters like him couldn't participate in the caucus.

"Upon hearing that, I registered Democrat," recalled the 30-twelvemonth-old Haverkamp, who lives in Denver.

Both the Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigns accept been on voter registration drives here, so it's not clear yet who this spike in Democratic registration volition favor. But Haverkamp says either way, the day afterward the caucus, he'll switch back to being unaffiliated.

- Ben Markus, Colorado Public Radio

Florida: Puerto Ricans Opt Out Of Party System

In the packed parking lot of a supermarket in the central Florida city of Kissimmee, Jeamy Ramirez and her staff step toward customers with clipboards in hand, trying to annals new voters. Half the population of this growing area are Latino and native Spanish speakers.

"We got a lot of people from Colombia, Venezuela — only most are Puerto Rican correct now," said Ramirez, a canvasser with Mi Familia Vota, a voting advocacy grouping.

In the past year, thousands of Puerto Ricans have left the struggling island for central Florida, and they're the fastest-growing group of independent voters in this crucial swing state, according to an analysis of voter registration data from the Florida secretary of state'southward office.

New Puerto Rican arrivals find that moving to Florida ways existence able to vote for president, something that'southward non possible on the isle, and adjusting to a completely unlike political system.

"They don't know a lot of the candidates. They commencement seeing the debates and all that stuff. That's why they put no party affiliation," said Ramirez.

Only many newcomers keep their focus on politics in Puerto Rico.

"They pay attention to politics on the news. It is an ever-present topic of conversation. It is a cultural result of sorts," said Carlos Vargas Ramos, a researcher at the Centre for Puerto Rican Studies at the City Academy of New York Hunter College.

Here in the U.S., Puerto Ricans notice there are more frequent elections that are frequently less competitive. Ramos says other barriers to voting are language, voter registration requirements and a full general feeling of distance from the political process.

But fifty-fifty Puerto Ricans who have been here a long fourth dimension choose to stay out of the party system. Luz Maria Sanchez, who is 69, hasn't been registered with a political party for 25 years, even though the country's airtight master keeps independents from deciding who'll make information technology on the Nov ballot. But Sanchez said she's non missing out.

"They say things just to win the candidate. Republicans, they say they're going to fix the land; and Democrats, they follow almost the same, but they go the other way around," said Sanchez.

Back in the parking lot, Jeamy Ramirez hopes that even if Puerto Ricans don't vote in next month's primary, they'll turn out in November when Florida is likely to be a key swing land.

"Nosotros can decide right now the presidential election," said Ramirez.

- Renata Sago, WMFE, Orlando, Fla.

Arizona: Contained Voters Try To Organize

It may sound like an oxymoron, but Arizona's unaffiliated, independent voters are organizing themselves and banding together.

Independents are now the largest voting group in the state, and that trend is only growing. For the past iii years, the number of voters registering or re-registering every bit contained has outpaced new Republican and Democratic registrations combined.

But the concluding voter registration period that ended Feb. 22 was dissimilar. The number of independents in Arizona dropped slightly. That'south probable because unaffiliated voters can't participate in Arizona's upcoming presidential primary, and some independents chose a party for that reason.

The rule that excludes independents from the presidential primary is only one example of what independents here find to exist unfair about the state'due south voting system.

Now this growing group of voters wants more rights at the polls, and they are trying to alter that through grass-roots pressure.

Patrick McWhortor of the group Open Primaries organized a phone "town hall" last calendar month for independent voters that nearly 13,000 people called into to discuss these efforts.

"Independent voters, now 37 percent of all Arizona registered voters, are treated like second-class citizens," said McWhortor at the beginning of the coming together.

He discussed his group'due south efforts to get two election reform initiatives on the November ballot. One would brand a single primary ballot with every candidate on the same election. The top two candidates would advance regardless of party amalgamation. The initiative would likewise reduce current barriers for independents running for part.

Deb Gain-Braley, a 57-year-old retired auditor in Tempe, became interested in independent voting rights bug later she realized that she would not be able to vote in Arizona's March 22 presidential primary unless she re-registered again with a party. She had previously been registered as a Republican.

"I think that no one should take to cull a political party to vote in America," Proceeds-Braley said. "And then I went looking to see if in that location were any other organizations arguing confronting what'southward going on."

In addition to the Open up Primaries grouping, Gain-Braley besides discovered Independent Voters for Arizona, a campaign focused on opening the presidential primary to independents that she now volunteers for. The grouping got more than xxx,000 people to sign a letter of the alphabet to party leaders asking them to open up the primary. So far those calls take not been heeded, and the primaries will remain airtight this year.

Timothy Castro, who runs Independent Voters for Arizona, argues information technology's not fair to exclude Arizona's ane.2 meg voters from a presidential chief paid for with taxpayer dollars.

"If we are paying for something we aren't immune to vote in, then let united states vote in it, or don't make me pay for it," Castro said.

In fact, independents may have more luck getting out of paying for the master in futurity years rather than really voting in it.

A pecker making its way through the Arizona Legislature would make political parties — not taxpayers — selection upwardly the tab for presidential primaries starting in 2020. The beak is backed by the secretarial assistant of land's office.

If the bill succeeds, information technology volition nonetheless get out independent voters to notice a fashion into time to come presidential primaries here.

- Jude Joffe-Block, KJZZ, Phoenix