Interdependent Third Party in '08!

For all those who have wondered why the United States doesn't have a viable third party, the wait is over. The state of Massachusetts has been busy building a new third party from the ground up, and you didn't even know it!

In fact, many voters who belonged to that party didn't know it, either. The Globe reported on Saturday that several people who planned to vote in the primary discovered they had been registered Interdependent.

The mixup appears to be between "independent" and "interdependent," which really was the name of a little-known political party, so little-known that "Green-Rainbow" probably has more name recognition. Said mixup may have started at the home of all mixups--the RMV:

Massachusetts voters who enroll at the Registry must fill out forms that include check-boxes for the state's four major political parties. They also include a check-box for unenrolled to indicate that a voter wants to remain independent. A third option allows voters to write in a minor political affiliation. Election officials believe that many voters who wanted to register as independents be came confused by the selections. Rather than checking unenrolled, they checked the minor affiliation box and wrote the word independent. Clerks processing the forms then entered those voters in the party whose name seemed like the closest match, the Interdependent Third Party.

Did this happen to you at the polls? If not, and you consider yourself a registered "Independent," you might want to double-check whether or not Massachusetts thinks you are "Interdependent."