VOTER REGISRATION UNDER party labels has been on the decline for years, but new figures show political parties in Massachusetts withering at a much greater rate than previously known, with nearly two-thirds of all voters now registered without a party designation.
On a practical level, there is little benefit to registering under a party banner in Massachusetts, given the state’s semi-open primary system, where unaffiliated voters can participate in either party’s nominating contests. This has contributed to the long term decline of party rolls. But what was a steady decline of registered partisans is now a freefall due to new systems of registering voters.
If current trends continue, party registration will be so unusual that the two-party system will cease to be a useful way to group Massachusetts voters. So few voters will be registered with parties that a young registered Democrat will be an unusual sight and young Republicans will go on the endangered species list.
Just before the presidential primary earlier this month, Secretary of State Bill Galvin announced that 64 percent of Massachusetts voters are not registered under a party label (the state uses the sometimes confusing term “unenrolled” for such independent voters). This figure is up from 56 percent in 2020 and 53 percent in 2016. Just 27 percent of voters in this reliably blue state are now registered Democrats, while only 8 percent are registered Republicans.
These figures, amazing on their own, undersell the pace of change. Among the youngest registrants, those aged 18 to 20, an astonishing 92 percent registered as an unenrolled voter between 2020 and early 2023, the newest voter data file accessible for this analysis.
This is an absolute explosion compared to seven years ago, when roughly two-thirds of the youngest voters registered were unenrolled. But the dynamic goes beyond just young registrants avoiding the two-party structure. Even older people registering recently are far less likely than folks of the same age to choose a party.
A key driver of this rapid change is Massachusetts’ new automatic voter registration law, which went into effect in 2020. Rather than having to take steps to register to vote in person or by mail, citizens who interact with state government in a variety of ways are automatically registered to vote. Examples include applying for a driver’s license, enrolling in the state’s Medicaid program, or going through the Health Connector, the state-run marketplace for health coverage. But while voter registration has become largely automatic, party registration is not.
What’s more, following an update to the law, as of 2023, the Registry of Motor Vehicles form does not have an opt-out box for voter registration. As the RMV website puts it, “applicants that wish to opt out may contact their town/municipality directly.” There is also no party selection mechanism on the license application, meaning everyone added to the rolls through this pathway is unenrolled. In theory, these voters can add a party preference online through the secretary of state’s website, or through their local city or town clerk, by mail or in person. But that option doesn’t seem to be bringing people back into parties. The upshot? Even more people will be registered to vote without choosing a party.
This comes through clearly when comparing party registration figures from the time since automatic voter registration went into effect with registrations from the 2016 to 2019, the years just before the changeover.
The trend away from party registration has been gathering steam for many years. In the 1980s, only around 40 percent of Massachusetts voters were unenrolled. That figure crossed 50 percent right around the year 2000 and grew to 57 percent by 2020, when automatic voter registration went into effect. This corresponds with a long term movement away from formal party affiliation that extends far beyond Massachusetts. Automatic voter registration has accelerated this trend to breakneck speed.
Moving forward, the growth rate of unenrolled voters is difficult to forecast precisely. Many of the state’s adults who were previously eligible but not registered have already been swept up in the automatic voter registration system since the law took effect. As time goes on, a larger and larger share of new registrants will be made up of either first-time registrants, or people re-registering after moving to a new voting location. It’s difficult to say how this might translate into specific percentages of unenrolled voters other than to say it will be higher than it is now.
To be sure, this trend away from party registration does not mean Massachusetts voters are more politically independent. The state is as deep blue as ever, even with relatively fewer registered Democrats. The last few statewide and national contests have left Republican candidates covered in thick layers of shellac.
Because of the state’s overall Democratic leaning, automatic voter registration will likely have the odd impact of moving the unenrolled voter category to the left, reshaping a longstanding contour of the Massachusetts political landscape. In the past, unenrolled voters leaned to the right as a group when compared to the state as a whole. Republican candidates often drew more unenrolled voter support than their Democratic rivals. Now, with the vast majority of new voters not registering with either party, more voters who would otherwise have been Democrats are entering the unenrolled column.
The implications and even the importance of this growth of unenrolled voters are debatable. Across the country, 19 states operate their electoral systems without a party registration system and still manage to hold competitive two-party elections. Voters in these states act like partisans anyway, speak like partisans, and vote like partisans. Who cares if there is no way for them to register their party preference? Massachusetts could opt to follow the lead of those states.
Party registration data is also not as important to political institutions as one might think. With the rise of massive commercial databases of voters and consumers, campaigns across the country have plenty of other ways to figure out a given voter’s partisan leaning even without referring to registration. So if the state doesn’t need it for elections, and the party doesn’t need it for campaigns, who needs it? If its only function is to lock the 35 percent of voters in Massachusetts who are registered partisans out of the other primary, is that a good reason to keep the registration system going?
On the flip side, there are plenty of reasons to think strong parties are valuable and should be nurtured. Our state’s system is still built around the idea that party membership means something.
In an ideal world, parties help choose and vet candidates, build larger tents, and help avoid electing ideologues and extremists. Parties organize voters and build governing agendas or hold the majority party to account. Losing the traditional party structure might make our politics more polarized, not less. That alone would be an argument for doing something to save it from obsolescence.
At the moment, party membership in Massachusetts is sort of like joining a secret society. You can go to meetings with other members, do the rituals, and speak the language. But at the end of the day, you really don’t get much. It doesn’t grant access to a primary ballot, since unenrolled voters can choose to vote in either party’s primary. Registered partisans can vote in party caucuses and participate in conventions, but vanishingly few folks choose to do so.
Automatic voter registration has functioned as a social experiment on the importance of political parties. Three years in, it appears that voters simply do not care enough to take the extra steps needed to pick a party. The question now is, does party registration even matter at all? Unless the parties and policymakers do something, the current registration system is quickly headed for the dustbin.
Steve Koczela is president of the MassINC Polling Group.