LGBTQ voters in the US number 9M, 1 in 5 not registered to vote

Here’s the good news: there are almost nine million LGBTQ voters registered to vote, as reported by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

The bad news is that one out of five LGBTQ adults are not registered to vote, or 21 percent.

The national poll was conducted by the Williams Institute and Reuters/Ipsos in 2019 to see the characteristics of LGBTQ voters and their their presidential candidate preference.

LGBTQ voters: The latest breakdown of numbers

In their analysis, the Williams Institute found out that half of registered LGBTQ voters or 50 percent are Democrats, with 15 percent identifying as Republicans.

Study author Christy Mallory, State and Local Policy Director at the Williams Institute said voters of the LGBTQ community “are also more likely to identify with the Democratic Party.”

“Over four million LGBT Democrats are eligible to vote in the primaries next year,” Mallory said.

Meanwhile, 22 percent said they were independents while the rest said they identify with another party or they didn’t know which party they would most identify.

“LGBTQ voters differ from non-LGBT voters in several ways. For example, they are more likely to be young, male, and live in urban areas,” Mallory said

More about LGBTQ’s political preferences and how they vote

LGBTQ voters are significantly more likely to say as compared to non-LGBTQ voters that they would support seasoned political candidate.

That is, 51 percent of LGBTQ voters said that they were more likely to support “a career politician who knows his or her way around the political process,” compared to 40% of non-LGBT.

Moreover, as compared to non-LGBTQ voters, LGBTQ voters would more likely to support candidates who are black, Latino/a, or LGBTQ.

However, both majorities of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ voters said race and sexual orientation of the candidates wouldn’t figure in their votes.

Of the total number of LGBTQ voters, 22 percent are Latino/a, 13 percent are black, 61 percent are white, and 4 percent are other races or multiracial.

Pushing for free the voter in the LGBTQ communmity

Given that one-fifth of LGBTQ adults are not registered to vote, the Human Rights Campaign is pushing Stacey Abrams’s voter protection initiative, Fair Fight 2020, launched last August.

The HRC said this is because LGBTQ people are part of those that are disproportionately affected by strict voting laws and voter suppression efforts on the part of Republican elections officials in 20 battleground states

In an interview, Alphonso David, president of the HRC, said, “I feel very strongly that the Human Rights Campaign needs to do something meaningful in this space.”

“Voter suppression has primarily targeted voters of color, who also happen to include LGBTQ Americans, who far too often face disproportionate barriers in accessing their right to vote,” David said.

Abrams is focusing on challenging restrictions in voting laws and policies since losing in her bid for governor of Georgia last year.