Libertarian Voters Come From Democratic and Republican Parties Nearly Equally.

[Sentient Void]

http://lpo.org/


Analysis that has been done on this year’s Franklin County, Ohio primary election results shows a trend that isn’t surprising to the vast majority of Libertarians, but might be interesting to anyone who thinks Libertarian candidates hurt Republican candidates by pulling Republican voters: they pull Democratic voters at about the same rate.

After analyzing data from the Franklin County Board of Elections, which includes the capital of Columbus, it was found that 22% of this year’s Libertarian voters had voted Republican in the 2008 Primary, while 27% had voted Democrat. 41% didn’t even vote in the 2008 primary

.

To take the analysis one step further, voting patterns since 2000 were included to measure the true trend of Republican and Democratic voters. With that information, it was found that 34% of Libertarian voters in 2010 had a pattern of voting Republican since 2000, and 25% had a Democratic trend.



While it is commonplace to claim that voting for Libertarian Party candidates will hurt one of the major party candidates, the truth of the numbers is that it is the voters, and not the parties, who will have the final say. “This is statistical proof that reinforces what Libertarians have anecdotally noted for many years. The principles of small Constitutional government, lower taxes and more personal freedom transcend traditional political descriptors,” said Charlie Earl, Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State.

Additional analysis will also be conducted on the statewide results once they are made available.

Obviously this is not news to us :)

Some organization should compile national data to see what we can find out.... and if a similar trend goes on nationally. I believe this is probably the case.

Thoughts?

[jkr]

we are the center

[justinc.1089]

There is no right or left, but only up or down, tyranny, or liberty.


WE are liberty.


This is news to me, I always thought we had more republicans than democrats, if you're counting that by which way someone has voted usually when not voting for a third party or not voting at all. I knew we had lots of democrats, but I didn't know it was just as many as the number of republicans we have.

Thats great news.:)

[Working Poor]

my dad was a libertarian I was spoon fed liberty.

[Romulus]

Maybe thats why Libertarians are always bickering with each other. Lolz

[erowe1]

After analyzing data from the Franklin County Board of Elections, which includes the capital of Columbus, it was found that 22% of this year’s Libertarian voters had voted Republican in the 2008 Primary, while 27% had voted Democrat. 41% didn’t even vote in the 2008 primary

.

To take the analysis one step further, voting patterns since 2000 were included to measure the true trend of Republican and Democratic voters. With that information, it was found that 34% of Libertarian voters in 2010 had a pattern of voting Republican since 2000, and 25% had a Democratic trend.

This data doesn't support the conclusion they make as well as they seem to think it does.

What this shows is that what happened in 2008, with more LP voters voting in the Dem primary than the GOP one, was unusual, and that in 2000 and 2004 the opposite was the case. In fact, since the total data pool counting all three of those primaries results in the LP getting 35% of its votes from GOP primary voters and only 25% from Dem primary voters, and since that includes the data from 2008, it follows that it must be the case that when you look just at 2000 and 2004, the pattern of the LP drawing more votes from the GOP than the Dems would be even more apparent (probably something like 40% of the LP's votes coming from Republicans and 22% of them coming from Democrats).

I personally think that the most likely explanation for this is simply that 2008 was an anomalous year. When Ohio had its primaries in 2008, the Dem race was still very competitive, while the GOP one wasn't. So there was much greater incentive for people (of all persuasions) to vote in the Dem primary where they could make a difference, even if that was merely to make a difference in who would represent a party they wouldn't eventually support in the general election.

My observation from anecdotal evidence in one of Ohio's neighboring states is that here in Indiana the conventional wisdom is true, and there are a lot more LP voters here who could be inclined to vote Republican than there are who would vote Democrat.

On the other hand, the other part of the story about how a large number of LP voters would be unlikely to support either a Republican or a Democrat is still true.

Edit: Here's a key bit of data to back up my point. In the Ohio primary in 2008, twice as many people turned out to vote in the Democrat primary as the Republican one. So the fact that the LP drew 27% of its votes from those who had voted in the Democrat one and 22% of its votes from those who had voted in the Republican one proves little. In fact, it still supports the case that LP voters are more Republican leaning on average than the general population is.
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/elections/electResultsMain/2008ElectionResults/pturnout.aspx

[sevin]

That's awesome. It's seems the best way to unite the right and left is with liberty.