The Independent Party of Oregon will celebrate its first birthday on January 26th.

The ranks of Independents grew by more than 10,000 new members during the party's first year. This, despite the fact that the total number of voters in Oregon dropped by more than 34,000. The Oregon GOP lost 16,000 members. The Democratic Party of Oregon lost 13,000. There are 800 fewer Libertarians and 800 fewer Greens. Even non-affiliated voters decreased by 6,000. The only party affiliation to grow was the Independent Party.

Party	       Jan 2007	June 2007	Nov 2007	1yr change 
DEMOCRATIC	766,129	 754,380	753,212 	- 13,200
REPUBLICAN	703,125	 690,903	684,285		- 18,800
NON-AFFILIATED	438,251	 432,970	431,986		-  6,200
LIBERTARIAN	  15115	  14,712	 14,329 	-    800
PAC GREENS	  12086	  11,692	 11,221 	-    800
CONSTITUTION	   3194	  3,132		  3,000	        -    200
WORKING FAMILY	   1465	  1,464		  1,485	        no change  
INDEPENDENT	   -      2,633		  9,376	        +  10,745
TOTAL	      1,974,957	1,945,254     1,940,889	        -  34,068

Data suggests that roughly half of the party's growth came from voters who re-registered from another party and half of the party's growth came by registering new voters.

This table shows where Independent Party growth came from from Sept, 2007 to Jan, 2008.

PREV PARTY           JOINED IPO    PERCENT 
------------------------------------------------
DEM			 627         15.4%
REP			 509         12.5%
LBT	 		  32          0.8%
PAC	 		  21          0.5%
NA			 735         18.1%
------------------------------------------------
Changed Party 		1924         47.3% 
New Reg	 		2142         52.7%
Total Growth            4066

To everyone who has helped to spread the word: Thanks, and onward!