NEWS
A12 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2019
The rise of the unaffi liated voter
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
When it comes to voting,
Umatilla County residents
are a bit free spirited.
Going into the most
recent election, 41.8% of
them were not registered to
any political party — the
second-highest unaffi liated
rate in the state.
Some of them were added
to the voter rolls as unaf-
fi liated by default after the
“motor voter” bill used infor-
mation from the Department
of Motor Vehicles to auto-
matically register people to
vote. But others wear their
unaffi liated label proudly, as
a conscious choice.
Tammy Knight of Mis-
sion said she started out reg-
istered as a Democrat.
“When I was growing up,
my dad told me that Demo-
crats were the working party
and Republicans were the
rich people, so that’s what I
went with,” she said.
Over time, however, she
saw things she disliked hap-
pening in both major polit-
ical parties and came to
believe they were both cor-
rupt. So, she eventually
switched to having no polit-
ical party, focusing on indi-
vidual candidates’ resumes
and positions instead. She
has voted for candidates on
both sides of the aisle.
“I like being the wild
card, I guess,” she said.
Dwayne Brown of Herm-
iston has a similar story,
except he started out as
a Republican after being
raised “very conservative.”
He said he still leans conser-
vative, but got “tired of poli-
tics in general.”
Overall, Brown said he
likes feeling fl exible about
how he votes — he voted
for Barack Obama in 2008,
for example, but not 2012.
He said the best way to spur
change is to focus on the best
candidates instead of auto-
matically voting by party.
“People either want to
vote for red or vote for blue
or vote for the best guy out
there,” he said.
Exactly half of Oregon’s
36 counties now have more
unaffi liated voters than vot-
ers with a single politi-
cal party, according to data
from the Oregon Secretary
of State. Most of those 18
counties are on the west side
of the state, but the three that
aren’t have the highest rates
of unaffi liated voters. Uma-
tilla County comes in second
at 41.8%, Morrow County
comes in third at 40.8% and
Malheur County has the
highest unaffi liated rate in
the state at 43.1%.
Wheeler County, which is
majority-Republican, has the
lowest number at 25.5%.
The most obvious reason
SWITCH & GET A
for the rise of the unaffi liated
in Oregon is the 2016 law
that automatically registers
people to vote when they get
or renew a driver’s license.
The newly registered vot-
ers get sent a postcard asking
if they want to register as a
member of a political party,
but a majority never send it
back.
The law helped increase
Umatilla County’s unaffi l-
iated voters from 8,424 in
October 2015 to 13,141 a
year later, and in 2017 unaf-
fi liated voters in the county
offi cially passed the number
of registered Republicans.
There are now 18,510 unaf-
fi liated voters in the county.
Unaffi liated voters had
been on the rise at a slower
pace for several years before
that, however, matching
a nationwide increase. In
2018, the Pew Research
Center found that 37% of
voters across the United
States were not registered
with a specifi c party, com-
pared with 30% in 1994.
Jeffery Dense, a political
science professor at Eastern
Oregon University, said in
an email many unaffi liated
voters aren’t right down the
middle in their views. Pew
Research Center found about
80% tend to lean toward one
party or the other.
“While the rise of inde-
pendent/unaffi liated voters
is interesting, the real issue
is the United States has the
lowest voter turnout rate of
any industrialized democ-
racy in the world,” Dense
said. “If you don’t vote, you
don’t count.”
He said a state’s primary
system can have an effect on
the number of unaffi liated
voters. Some states, such as
Washington and California,
have a primary system where
the top two vote-getters
from the primaries advance,
regardless of party. In Ore-
gon, unaffi liated voters are
shut out of the primary pro-
cess for partisan races, with
Republicans and Democrats
each holding their own con-
test open only to voters reg-
istered to their party.
Suni Danforth, chair of
the Umatilla County Repub-
licans, said getting to vote in
the primaries should be an
incentive for people to reg-
ister to whatever party most
closely aligns with their
views, even if they don’t
agree 100% with everything
that party does. That way,
they can help a candidate
they like move on to the gen-
eral election.
“When you’re an unaf-
fi liated voter, that voice is
mute,” she said.
If people want to change
their registration, she said,
they can do it online, but
the best way is to fi ll out a
paper version by hand at the
county elections offi ce. That
way the state can have the
most current version of their
signature on fi le to compare
with their ballot signature,
instead of one pulled from
their drivers license or other
older records.
Antone
Minthorn,
co-chair of the Umatilla
County Democratic Party,
said he has been involved in
the Democratic Party since
the 1970s and has attended
many state and national
Democratic conventions.
He said many times in his
work with the party he has
been the only Native Amer-
ican in the room, under-
scoring what he sees as an
important benefi t to belong-
ing to a party. Having Native
American voices directly
involved in the political par-
ties that control government
helps them to understand
Native American issues and
place importance on tribal
priorities, such as salmon.
“They begin to see who
we are, to sponsor Native
American issues,” he said.
Minthorn also said it takes
“a whole lot of energy” at the
local, state and national level
to generate and support good
candidates for government
positions. When people lend
their time and talents to a
political party, they can help
with that.
Despite some of the bene-
fi ts of choosing a party, some
unaffi liated voters still see
upsides to staying indepen-
dent. They say they get hit up
for donations to candidates
and causes less often, and are
bothered with fewer phone
calls and mailers during an
election. And some people
just can’t bring themselves
to adopt a label when they
have been disappointed by
actions on both sides.
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