Mark Kimble, a Member of the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission, Publishes Op-Ed on Why Parties Should Not be Allowed to Have the Word “Independent” in Their NameMark Kimble, a member of the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission, has this op-ed in opposition to letting any party have the word “independent” in its name. The term “independent voter” does not appear in Arizona law or on official Arizona forms. That is why there have been many one-state parties that not only used the word “independent” in their name; their entire name was simply “Independent Party.” Parties called the “Independent Party” have been ballot-qualified in the past, or currently, in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Oregon, South Carolina, and Utah. The term “independent voter” was not used in the United States until political scientists started using the term in the late 1950’s. Thus, the practice of using a word strongly connected to the word “independent” is far older than using the term “independent voter”.