Louisiana - New trend: White flight from Democratic Party: Black and no-party voter registrants also increase

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Monday, November 18, 2002 8:27 A.M.

John Hill Posted on November 18, 2002

BATON ROUGE - A study of Louisiana's voter registration rolls over the past 35 years shows some important political trends: a white flight from the Democratic to Republican Party, a steady rise in black voter registration and a recent rise in the percentage of voters choosing no party affiliation.

Another conclusion: Party declaration really means little or nothing, when you compare registration to election results.

Since New Year's Eve 1957, Louisiana's electorate has grown from 839,000 to 2.8 million as of Sept. 27, the date registration closed for the Nov. 5 election.

The characteristics of the electorate's racial make-up have undergone significant changes.

In 1957, white registrations were 86 percent of the total and blacks were 14 percent. Today, 67 percent of voters are white, 29 percent are black and 4 percent are characterized officially as "other."

The growth in the number of blacks registering to vote has been gradual and steady, with only a small bump after the passage of the landmark U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Voting Rights Act ended a requirement that voters interpret a part of the Constitution to the satisfaction of the registrars, a tool white segregationists used to deny the right to vote to nonwhites.

At the end of 1964, black registration was the same

13.7 percent of total vote that it had been in 1963. The bump occurred in 1965: Black registration grew from 13.7 to

16.8 percent, then to 18.6 percent by the end of 1966. After that, black registration has grown slowly and steadily, sometimes even dropping slightly as a percentage of the total.

Louisiana's other minority voters have grown their share considerably. In 1986, the first year in which the "other" racial designation showed up in historical data, voters of "other" races numbered 7,805, or 0.4 percent of the total. That bloc has grown to 99,157 voters, 3.5 percent of the total

registrants.

A more recent change -- probably due to the so-called "Motor Voter" registration drives that began in 1996 -- has been the rise in the percentage of voters who choose neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party.

It began in 1975, when Louisiana did away with party primaries and went to its unique "Open Elections" system in which all candidates, regardless of party, run in a primary, with the two top candidates meeting in a runoff.

In 1975, 27,202 whites and 5,250 blacks declined to declare themselves either a Democrat or a Republican.

That began a steady increase in the number of whites refusing to declare a party affiliation: 201,000 whites declared no set party in 1995, or 8.7 percent of total registration; 54,331 blacks said "no party' that year.

Then, the Legislature directed parish registrars of voters to go into neighborhoods, often in vans, to sign up new voters.

This year, 365,000 whites have no party, which is more than one out of every 10 voters: 120,500 black voters haven't declared an allegiance.

First Assistant Elections Commissioner Pat Bergeron, who compiled the study, said white Democrats have dropped by 10 percent of the electorate by decade, black Democrats by 2 percent over the past decade.

"White Republicans have increased 20 percent over 46 years, white independents by 13 percent and black independents by 4 percent," Bergeron said.

"The most interesting trend is the 25 percent growth in African-American independents over the past five years," he said.

State Sen. Charles Jones,

D-Monroe, the growth in black independents "expresses that people don't want to be characterized in their philosophies."

He also believes the growth in independent registrations reflects people's desire "to demonstrate their ability and right to choose."

But regardless of how they are registered, "people end up voting for their best interests," Jones said.

Party registration means nothing in the Open Elections System, said Ed Renwick of the Loyola Institute of Politics.

"Many people don't vote as they are registered," Renwick said. "This is particularly true of Democrats. They are 57 percent of the voters, yet Republicans keep winning statewide elections," he said.

Black voters have historically voted for Democrats about 95 percent of the time -- 99 percent in the 1991 showdown gubernatorial election between former Gov. Edwin Edwards and white supremacist David Duke.

LSU-Shreveport political scientist Jeff Sadow sees nothing significant about the rise of no-party registrants since "Motor Voter" registration began in 1996.

"You had registrars reaching out to people who were less likely to register otherwise," Sadow said. "They were not necessarily registering people who were involved, and they just didn't fill out a box for a party."

At a glance:

Today, the electorate is more diverse:

# 33 percent are white Democrats.

# 24 percent are black Democrats.

# 21 percent are white Republicans.

# 13.1 percent are white

independents.

# 4 percent are black independents.

-- Anonymous, November 18, 2002


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