Declaration of Independents

We hold it to be self-evident that voters should be equal in voice, equal in dignity, and equal in political rights; that no citizen’s participation should depend upon allegiance to a party; and that government exists to serve the people, not the factions that compete to control it.

Yet independent voters, now the largest and fastest-growing group of voters in America, are not equal. Though citizens and taxpayers, they are excluded from publicly funded primaries, denied meaningful participation in candidate selection, and shut out of debates, voter guides, polling, and media narratives, while offered political participation only on the condition that they surrender their independence.

Americans are leaving the political parties not out of apathy, but out of principle. They reject a system that demands loyalty to labels over loyalty to country, rewards division over problem-solving, and places power above public trust. By choosing independence, they claim the freedom to judge candidates on merit, vote issue by issue, and put the common good before partisan allegiance. Yet independence is punished with inequality.

This inequality is not accidental; it is structural, born of rules written by political insiders to preserve their own power. George Washington warned that factions would substitute “the will of a party” for “the will of the nation.” That warning has gone unheeded.

As the Nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we affirm that the promise of 1776 remains unfinished. Political equality cannot endure where millions of voters are treated as second-class participants.