Connecticut state officials are excited that thousands of unaffiliated voters are registering as Democrats for tomorrow’s primary between Lieberman and Lamont. My initial reaction was that this was great proof that the movement to unseat Lieberman could no longer be cast by the MSM and DC insiders as a crazy netroots adventure by those angry liberal bloggers and limited to a referendum simply on the Iraq war. No, this was evidence of a grass-roots movement by ordinary Americans who are tired of party elites selecting lawmakers who prostitute themselves to special corporate interests at the expense of their true employer, the American people. It is no secret that members of both parties fear that if Lamont wins, the “Lieberman Effect” will spread throughout the land at the midterms and 2008. The fear is so great that Senate Democratic leaders “urged MoveOn officials to stay out of the primary.” So, my next question was just who are these “unaffiliated voters”? Is it possible that the GOP, who loves Bush-kissing Joe, could orchestrate a campaign to get like-minded voters, Republican or otherwise, to cross over to vote for Joe as part of the thousands of unaffiliated voters switching to the Democratic party to qualify as a voter in this primary?
The short answer is yes.
Connecticut only permits people registered with a party to vote in the party’s primary. No cross-over voting and no voting by unaffiliated voters. In the state, there are 900,000 unaffiliated voters, “who account for 44 percent of the state’s registered voters.” Throughout the state, there has been a “recent rush by unaffiliated voters to join the Democratic Party by the deadline of noon today.” Town halls across the state have been “inundated” by people registering with the Democratic Party. In the last 2 months alone, 11,496 unaffiliated voters registered as a Democrat.
Registrations, including foot traffic to registrars’ offices, has been higher than ever. The number of unaffiliated voters who are signing on as Democrats is “especially high” and significantly higher than those signing on to the GOP for its primary. Even the presidential primaries have not seen a lot of changes or new registrations.
And, it is not just unaffiliated voters. Local offices are inundated with residents who are changing their party affiliation. People can change their affiliation from either Republican or Independent to Democrat, but their deadline expired last May 8th.
The scary part is that these unaffiliated voters who are signing up as Democrats for the primary may change back to an unaffiliated status after the primary. An unaffiliated voter who changes to GOP or Democrat can change back to unaffiliated the day after the primary. Some of these people have even stated that “the day after the primary they’re going to go back to being unaffiliated.” However, a person who changes from Republican to Democrat must wait 3 months before re-registering as a Republican. So, the midterms are November 7th. If members of the GOP crossed-over to vote in the Democrat primary, they have plenty of time to re-register as GOP before the midterms.
My hope is that the high number of unaffiliated voters registering with the Democratic party and the GOP cross-overs are motivated by personal choice and principle. However, given the numerous ways that the GOP has used to commit fraud on elections, it certainly would not be shocking to find out that this was an orchestrated plan. Should Joe win tomorrow, this issue may warrant further examination, particularly given that unaffiliated voters tend to be more moderate and liberal in Connecticut.
Patriot Daily: News of the day, just a click away!
