Veterans for All Voters: Why Military Communities Are Choosing Independence — And Why It's Time to Act

Veterans have always been among America's most trusted civic voices. For decades, both parties assumed they could count on the military and veteran community as a reliable partisan bloc. That assumption is falling apart — and it's time the system caught up.

The Shift Is Real

Younger veterans are registering as independents at growing rates, and organizations like Veterans for All Voters are leading the charge to fix a system that too often locks them out. Veterans swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a political party. Our election laws should reflect that — and where they don't, we should be fighting to change them.

What Veterans for All Voters Is Fighting For

Veterans for All Voters is pushing for open primaries and ranked-choice voting nationwide, built on three demands:

• Open primaries — every registered voter, regardless of party, should be able to participate in the taxpayer-funded elections that decide who governs them.
• Ranked-choice voting — voters deserve more expressive power at the ballot box, not a binary choice between two flawed options.
• Voter education — military and veteran communities need to know their rights under the rules that currently govern (or restrict) their participation.

We're not just documenting this trend. We're organizing around it.

Why Veterans Are Walking Away From the Parties

Veterans who served alongside people of every political background — and learned to put mission above ideology — are some of the most natural independent voters in the country. The reasons keep showing up:

• Zero patience for gridlock. Mission-driven people don't tolerate political theater that produces nothing.
• Distrust of both parties. Neither has delivered consistently on veterans' healthcare, benefits, or transition support.
• Service over party. The military ethos — serve all Americans, not a partisan subset — doesn't stop mattering after discharge.
• Priorities that don't map to culture war. Affordability, jobs, and fiscal responsibility rank above the fights cable news wants to have.

The Injustice at the Center of This

In roughly half of U.S. states, veterans who register independent are locked out of primary elections they helped pay for. That's not a technicality — it's taxation without representation for an estimated 50 million independent voters nationwide, including a disproportionate share of younger veterans.

This is fixable. States have changed their primary laws before, and they can again — but only with sustained pressure. Veterans for All Voters is building that pressure state by state, and the momentum is real.

Why This Is Our Fight Too

The Independent Center exists to build political power for independent voters — full stop. The priorities driving veterans toward independence are the same ones driving our movement: economic responsibility, equal opportunity, real choice, and government that actually works. When veterans organize to reform the system they swore to defend, that's not a sidebar to our mission. It's the mission.

The Numbers

• Roughly half of U.S. states use closed or semi-closed primaries, shutting independents out of elections their taxes fund.
• An estimated 50 million independent voters are affected.
• Younger veterans are registering independent faster than any prior generation.
• 51% of Americans now identify as politically independent (Gallup).

Take Action

Open primaries and ranked-choice voting aren't fringe ideas — they're overdue fixes to a system that's failing the people who defended it. Join the movement, support the reforms, and help us make sure independent veterans get a voice in the elections they already fund.