By Aimee McElreath, Campus News Editor
Recently, many non-party affiliated (NPA) voters have been registered in Florida. This leads to the question of what this increase in independent voters could mean for future elections.
Dr. Karen Hannel, Chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, provided insight into what NPA voter status is and why somebody may not affiliate with the mainstream political landscape of Left versus Right.
“Technically, NPA is simply a voter-registration category,” said Hannel. “In Florida, a person can register with a political party or register without party affiliation.”
Essentially, if an NPA voter had to check a box of which Party affiliation he or she was involved with, the choice the voter would check would be, “none of the above.”
NPA voter status should not be confused with affiliation with the Independent Party. The Independent Party has its own political ideas that do not fall into the categories of Democrat or Republican political thought, but voters not affiliated with a party have individual ideas that may not align with any party.
Further, Hannel elaborated on why somebody may not identify with a mainstream party like Democrat or Republican.
“There are many reasons, and one mistake is assuming that people who register without a party affiliation must fall somewhere in the political middle,” explained Hannel. “Some certainly do, but others have very strong political convictions and simply don’t believe either major party represents them particularly well.”
In other words, not every person has the same political beliefs, and not everybody’s political beliefs fall in line with an established status quo of a particular political party.
“A voter might believe that one party has moved in directions they find fundamentally incompatible with their values while also believing that the other too often lacks the willingness or effectiveness to provide a meaningful alternative,” said Hannel. “In that situation, choosing NPA can be less about indecision than about declining to give either party an endorsement it hasn’t earned.”
NPA allows voters to express more nuance in their voting choices. This is critical, considering that the world we live in is not black and white, but a complex world of ideas that are beneficial in some ways and negative in others.
NPA might also allow voters freedom from a political party whose ideas they once aligned with, but the political climate has drastically changed, creating a disconnect between the individual and the political organization.
“At least in my own case, becoming an NPA wasn’t a matter of finding a new political home,” clarified Hannel.
In Hannel’s case, she had decided that neither party had earned her affiliation, and if other NPA voters had also left their former political parties for the same reason, it would show a rising growth of dissatisfaction of the mainstream political landscape.
However, not every voter independent of a political party has the same reason for becoming an NPA.
“Some people may have never joined a party,” Hannel elaborated. “Others, like me, were previously affiliated and made a conscious decision to leave.”
As an independent voter, Hannel believes that she does not have an obligation to show loyalty to a particular party based on sharing views alone.
“Parties should have to earn a voter’s support election by election rather than assume it because of a letter beside the voter’s name,” said Hannel.
The rise of registered NPA voters could mean that there could be less political division. Rather than “Left versus Right,” a surge of voters who identify with neither can instead base their political views based off “right versus wrong” or how they personally believe that government could be better structured.
It is also possible that this surge of political diversity could encourage dialogue between American citizens. Often, political tension is so grand that any political subject is a taboo when speaking to somebody of different political thoughts, like a friend or family member.
However, conversation, when respectful, can bring us together as citizens of the United States of America and can produce new ideas that can benefit everybody. Rather than the continual splitting of American society into different political factions, the rise of NPA voters may suggest that we can grow in the core values of respect and community as American citizens.
