Voting Block?

Apparently (according to the news story I saw the other night) I am now a member of Colorado's largest voting block! But that gives me pause for thought. Can unaffiliated voters really be considered a "block?"

I mean, the whole point is that we are not affiliated with any party… thus, were we to affiliate with each other, we would become a de facto party. So, I am not sure why the news chose to classify us as a block.

It is going to be an interesting election in Colorado, though, I'll give you that. There are about six thousand more unaffiliated voters (no party affiliation) in Colorado than there are members of the Republican Party. There are about 12,000 more Republicans than there are Democrats. When I was looking at the numbers, I had to push the percentage to a decimal place to see a difference between the party affiliations.

I did find it interesting to see that the smallest voting block is the one person in Douglas County that is registered as a member of the Reform Party. The only person in the state registered to that party.

Other interesting statistics:

For the 2008 primaries, 80.4% of the registered voters actually voted. (That's pretty good considering that the numbers I have seen show that the national average was 71%.)

Mail-In Ballots were requested by 59.8% of the registered voters in Colorado. 13.2% of those have already been cast.

In the two days that have been tabulated since Early Voting began in Colorado 41,975 people (1.6%) of the eligible voters have cast their ballots.

All figures have been provided by the Colorado Secretary of State website.

Wherever you are today, I hope that you will take an interest in your local civic affairs. And for all you US Citizens who are reading this, please do not forget to vote by the time the polls close on Tuesday, November fourth!

Don Bergquist – October 23, 2008 – Lakewood, Colorado, USA