Secretary of State Jan Brewer announced that statewide registration for the Nov. 2 general election is a record 2,643,331, an increase of more than 400,000 since 2002 and 470,000 since the last presidential election in 2000.

Democrats and Republicans both have set registration records — and both continue to lose ground.

The figures show that unaffiliated and minor-party registrants now account for 25.5 per cent of statewide registration, breaking 25 per cent for the first time in a trend that dates back to the end of the 1960s.

Back then, this category was only 3 per cent of total registration, but the unrest of the Sixties, followed by the Watergate scandals of 1972-74 and then the stagflation of the late 1970s drove new voters away from the major parties and opened the era of the independent voter.

By 1980 nearly 9 per cent of registered voters in Arizona were neither Democrats nor Republicans. By 1990 that had grown to more than 11 per cent and by 2000 to 18 per cent. Today, more than 655,000 registered voters are unaffiliated, and a small number belong to alternative parties, the Libertarians being the most numerous with 18,261 registered voters.

Republicans continue to register the most voters in Arizona. They returned to 1 million-plus registrants this year for the first time since 1998. But the GOP has dipped below 40 per cent of registration (to 39.9 per cent) for the first time since 1966.

Democrats posted an all-time record for registrations at 914,264 but like the Republicans they continue their proportionate slide and are at 34.6 per cent of total registration, the party’s all-time Arizona low, continuing a trend that dates back to 1960.

U.S. Census Bureau and state Dept. of Economic Security estimates suggest that about 3,564,000 Arizonans are of legal voting age, and by those estimates, about 72 per cent of Arizonans who are eligible to vote have registered to do so. —