Sunday, February 14, 2010

Libertarian Party of California Attracting Fewer Delegates

Here are the peak numbers of delegates at the last six Libertarian Party of California state conventions. (I haven't yet found any numbers before 2005.)

California's population is growing, yet the LPC is attracting ever fewer delegates. (And presumably, ever fewer activists.)

2005 ..... 134

2006 ..... 91

2007 ..... 101

2008 ..... 73

2009 ..... 77

2010 ..... 68


The 2005 and 2010 conventions both met in Los Angeles County (the largest California county LP in terms of membership), so their attendance should be similar. Even so, the 2010 convention attracted nearly 50% fewer delegates than the 2005 convention. Pretty pathetic.

For what it's worth, I attended the 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009 conventions. I did not attend in 2006 (the infamous "cruise convention") or in 2010 (the most recent, this weekend).

2 comments:

-- Marc Montoni said...

I seem to recall California conventions in the 1990's were typically in the 200+ range.

Our experience in Virginia has been similar, unfortunately. As far as I can determine, our largest conventions were 1979 and 1981, with well over 100 in attendance at each one. We did manage to blow past more recent trends in 2004, however, with 105. Since then, it's been a downhill ride.

gail lightfoot said...

I have sent the Delegate counts from LPC minutes to Thomas Spiros. Those counts are registered delegates for estsablishing quorums. I have full counts for several conventions when I was either State Sec, Chair or Convention Oversight Cmt Chair. I can give you an anaylsis for 2002 and 2003 since I have the records in Quickbooks.