JACKSON COUNTY, Ore. —Non-affiliated voters now make up the largest portion of registered Jackson County voters. According to data from the Jackson County clerk’s office, there are 55,300 registered non-affiliated voters in the county.
That tops registered Republicans and Democrats, which total about 48,472 and 44,505 respectively.
County Clerk, Chris Walker believes much of the reason for the rise in non-affiliated voters, was the state’s law requiring people getting their drivers license, to register to vote, and pick a political party. If they don’t choose, they become registered as non-affiliated.
“Every person that comes on new through that system if you are eligible unregistered and we bring you on as a non-affiliated voter the way the system works is your brought on and then a lot of people don’t bother changing it, they just stay with that,” said Walker.
There are just under 160,000 registered voters in the county, so the 55,000, make up more than a third of total voters.
The deadline to register to vote in this year’s big midterm primary is April 26th.
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