According to this story, the Kansas Secretary of State’s office has released a new voter registration tally, as of October 1, 2011, and that tally shows that one person in Kansas is registered in Americans Elect. This appears to be the first official registration data in any state that shows any registered voters in Americans Elect. The number in Kansas will surely increase, when Kansas voter registration forms listing Americans Elect as a choice begin to circulate around the state.
The other Kansas totals are: Republican 750,908; Democratic 442,647; Libertarian 10,139; Reform 1,065; independent 487,944.
Other states in which Americans Elect will be listed on voter registration forms soon include Nevada and California. Arizona and Florida do not list the qualified minor parties on the voter registration form. In Alaska, Americans Elect is only a limited political party (i.e., a party that is only on the ballot for the presidential election), and so the Alaska registration form won’t list Americans Elect.
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Maybe not in California. The big counties are coming in with worse yields than elsewhere. Alameda, Contra Costa, Kern, Sacramento, San Francisco have been under 70%. Only Riverside and Santa Clara have been over 70%.
69.9% statewide would mean a full count is needed. A truly dismal return from Los Angeles is possible considering how badly it does at turnout in special elections.
With 1,621,627 signatures turned in, and 1,030,040 required, Americans Elect only needs a statewide validity rate of 63.5%. The largest county that has finished so far, Santa Clara, has 72.7% valid in its random sample.
Counties with roughly half the population of Santa Clara (Contra Costa, Fresno, Ventura, San Francisco, Kern) had as many or more signatures than Santa Clara.
Most large counties had signatures around 5% of the number of residents. Santa Clara had 1.9% and San Mateo had 1.1%.
Santa Clara is a real outlier for large counties in terms of small number of signatures gathered, and high validity rate of the signatures that were gathered.
Possible reasons:
(1) Gross incompetence by those organizing the statewide effort;
(2) Fraud by signature gatherers;
(3) People in the area are traditionalists and not particularly tech savvy, and the idea of using the internet for voting is not appealing; or
(4) People in the area are so used to using touch screens and keyboards, that they are unable to sign their name with a pen. California election laws are thus imposing an illegal literacy test; violating the ADA; violating the 26th Amendment; and possibly violating the 15th Amendment.
Generally, counties with low signature rates such as Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Stanislaus have higher validity rates. Counties with high signature rates tend to have lower validity rates. The more signatures you get in an area, it appears that the quality goes down.
It is going to be real close whether a full count is needed. If it is, it will be because of the low number of signatures gathered in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
It is looking real fortunate that California moved its presidential primary to June.