Has California DMV dampened its no-party voter registration excitement?

The announcement five years ago from California’s elections chief was sobering: Voters registering with no political party had edged out Republicans for the first time — relegating the GOP of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln to third place in the Golden State and stirring speculation that traditional party structures were on their way to irrelevance.

The trend proved short-lived. In the years since Democratic registration has continued its long rise, and even Republican registration has edged up slightly. But no-party registration has unexpectedly plummeted.

What killed the Golden State’s decades-long embrace of independent voter registration? A new analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California points to one of the state’s biggest buzz-kills as a likely culprit: The Department of Motor Vehicles.

“California’s version of automatic voter registration is playing a big role in this shift,” PPIC policy director Eric McGhee wrote in his July 17 analysis of the DMV registration option.

Since it went live in April 2018, McGhee said, three out of four voters created or updated their registration through the DMV and they have been “notably less likely” to register with no political party than those who register or update their records some other way.

“The numbers are staggering,” McGhee said, noting that “since 2018, the overall share of NPP voters has undergone the sharpest reversal in 60 years of registration data.”

McGhee said that the automatic voter registration electronic interface at the DMV initially “encouraged” no-party registration by prominently displaying that option on the touch-screen, while those who wanted a political party had to select another screen for a list.

But by 2020 it was revised to an interface that encourages voters to choose a political party and places no-party preference at the end of a long list of options.

“It clearly seems as though some people are avoiding no-party preference because it’s way down at the bottom of the list,” McGhee said.

However, McGhee acknowledged that doesn’t fully explain the shift away from independent voting. New voters had historically driven growth in independent registration, but that has slowed even among new registrants who don’t go through the DMV, he said.

“The (automatic voter registration) piece is definitely a factor,” McGhee said. “I think it’s fair to say there’s still some mystery.”

Polarization and improved perception of the major parties may be a factor, McGhee said, citing PPIC polling that showed a 10 percentage-point increase from 2010 to 2022 in voters holding a favorable view of their party and an unfavorable view of its opposition.

Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed that the DMV makes it harder to register independent of a party.

But he also noted that “a great deal of this trend developed during the Trump era.”

“Before 2016, you could shrug your shoulders and say ‘I can’t stand either party, what’s the difference?’” Schnur said. “Trump showed there’s a difference, and they responded accordingly. Trump is a deeply polarizing person. He drove more people into the Democratic Party, but also more people into the Republican Party.”

Generations ago, few registered as something other than Democrat or Republican. In 1962, only 3% in California registered as “decline to state” voters. Interest in independent voter registration began rising in the 1970s after the Vietnam War and Watergate left many Americans disillusioned with the major parties, and the trend accelerated in the 1990s and into the 21st century.

California election law changes helped drive that trend, as the state in the 1990s began moving toward open primaries in which, with the exception of presidential and party officer races, voters didn’t necessarily have to be registered with a party to vote for its candidates in primary elections.

California’s 2018 no-party preference peak came during the presidency of Donald Trump, whose unpopularity in the state prompted some centrist Republicans to register independent. But the state’s GOP registration climbed over no party preference as Trump unsuccessfully sought reelection. While Trump remains the top Republican for the presidential nomination in polls, independent registration in the state continues to wane.

Perhaps Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator who developed a huge following among younger voters, played a role. He ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020, and complained in 2020 that election rules requiring independent voters to request a Democratic ballot to vote in the party’s presidential primary would potentially suppress their vote.

In 2006, the last year Republicans won statewide office in California, 34% of state voters registered with the GOP, 42% as Democrats and 19% chose no party, according to figures from the California Secretary of State. By 2018, no-party registration had climbed to 28% and Democratic registration to 44% while Republican registration slipped to 24%.

But by 2020, the share of no-party voters dipped below 24% while Republican registration topped 24% and Democratic registration reached 46%. Last fall, no-party registration was down to 23%, Republican at 24% and Democratic at 47%.