SQUIDFRY 05.31.18: Independent Streak

INDEPENDENT STREAK… Squid is not currently registered to vote – Squid pledges to throw Squid’s support to whoever campaigns in 2020 on a platform of Citizenship 4 Cephalopods – but Squid feels a certain kinship to those who feel out of place in any given party. Squid gets it that thousands of voters register as independents – No Party Preference, in California voter registrations. Squid doesn’t get that thousands of voters have registered as members of theAmerican Independent Party, which starts its platform like so: “The American Independent Party gratefully acknowledges God as the Creator.” In the chapter titled “God-Given Duties to Individuals,” the party platform states, “God gave Man this earth to make of it a well-tended Garden – not to leave it an uninhabited wilderness.” Other tenets: Build a border wall; “absolute” rights per the Second Amendment (notably, not authored by God, but mere mortals); no same-sex marriage; no abortion, ever. It all comes down to a pretty literal reading of the Bible: “All Governments Under God.”

In a blue state like California, and a blue county like Monterey, Squid would’ve thought there might be relatively few members of the AIP. But Squid filed a Public Records Act request with the Monterey County Elections Department for a list, and counted a whopping 4,369 registered members. The Los Angeles Times conducted a survey in 2016, revealing about three-quarters of registered AIP voters inadvertently joined the party – they thought they were checking the box for Independent. Whoops.

Squid did Squid’s own mini-survey locally. Among those registered AIP members are KSBWanchor Erin Clark and Marina developer Harvey Dadwal. There’s Devon Corpus, who works with the homeless as a program manager for Community Human Services, and says she never meant to register as such: “I don’t want to be associated with that.” There’s Tonya Antle, co-founder of Organic Produce Network and a principal of Tanimura & Antle, who says it was an accident and she forgot to correct the mistake: “I will be changing this long before November.” There’s former Monterey County Weekly managing editor Mark C. Anderson who says, “I’ve always been a registered independent or thought I was. Definitely a surprise.”

There’s Kellie Morgantini, executive director of Legal Services for Seniors, who says she only discovered the inadvertent error when she noticed her ballot was different than her husband’s. “I don’t believe in anything [the AIP] does,” she says. “I should’ve paid more attention. I’m an attorney, for chrissake; I read the rules on a Monopoly game. If I could be misled, think of all the people… ”

Squid thinks of all those people, and thinks it’s mostly accidental registrations that make AIP the third-largest party in California. It’s not a party Squid will be attending.