Registered voters in Florida

For many years, registered democrats outnumbered registered republicans by a pretty big margin (I believe the difference was in the 500k range).  Independent/NPA/other parties made up a much lower percentage of voters.

But as we headed into a recent primary race, the numbers changed rather dramatically, and that became a hot topic.  Republicans now have around 1 million more registered voters than democrats, and the "others" now have a sizeable chunk of registrations. 

The governor would have you believe this is about the changing demographics of Florida, of his "free Florida" campaign.

And that just doesn't add up.  

One of the news outlets in Florida decided to dig into the numbers a little more.  And what they found were three things, none of which were about "more republicans" :

1. there was a voter purge that happened in what amounts to a red state.  Although there were voters from both parties impacted, it disproportionately impacted registered democrats.
2. there were a not insignificant number of people who switched their registration from democrat to republican. The news outlet decided to chase that down.  They contacted a sample of these people, and most of the ones they interviewed said they did it early this year, in advance of the cancelled presidential primary for the sole purpose of voting against Trump in that primary.,
3. there were a fair number of democrats who switched to other parties, independent, etc.  The news organization suggested this was out of frustration with the party sticking with Biden as the candidate.

So, while the voter roll numbers appear to tell a story, its more complicated than it seems.  But it took someone investigating it to get to something meaningful about how and why it changed.