Dan Haley, in the Denver Post a few weeks ago, noticed a shift in the party registration patterns, but buried the lead for the sake of a clever and misleading dig at Republicans:
Where have all the Republicans gone? Their once commanding voter registration edge in Colorado has slipped a bit over the past two years as this red state continues to show streaks of purple.
Of course, the real story is either major party but rather, neither major party:
The rest of Haley's story eventually gets there. But Colorado has always voted purple. Tim Wirth. Gary Hart. Roy Romer. Dick "Duty to Die" Lamm. The aggregate Republican vote for the state legislaure has been slipping for a decade, but has certainly accelerated under the late-term stewardship of Bill "Purple Tie" Owens.
By the way, what's with the hump in the middle of the registration numbers? Certainly there were voter registration drives just before the '04 elections. The decline was a purge of dead and expat voters that had lingered on past their time. Hundreds of thousands of voters.
A statewide voter registration database is still in the works, running years behind schedule. In the meantime, out of state deaths and moves aren't reported back to our Secretary of State.
But Ken Gordon's not worried about voter fraud.
Comments
Well spotted, Joshua.
Posted by: RichieD | May 26, 2006 6:17 AM