"We talk as though these people are strongly susceptible to the short-term influences of campaigning and the economy, and that they are a massive swing bloc in the electorate," says Petrocik, whose research helped lay the groundwork for the influential 1992 book The Myth of the Independent Voter.
"For the most part, none of those things are true," he says.
Wilson, who sees his political autonomy as a civic duty, is an example of someone who has taken to heart the belief that, as Petrocik puts it, "a good citizen is independent-minded and makes up his or her own mind."
"But as soon as you press them, they very quickly admit that they prefer one party or another," he says.
Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, agrees that being an independent is often an important part of a voter's personal identity. "People want to think of themselves as independent, that they don't just vote automatically," he says.
He also thinks there may be a more pragmatic reason why some voters remain unaffiliated: "They don't want to get literature; they don't want to be bothered; they don't want to get phone calls."
Truly independent voters do exist, according to Abramowitz and Petrocik, but they account for just 10 percent to 15 percent of the electorate. "And once you take away those people who aren't going to turn out, you're down to something like 6 percent or 7 percent," Abramowitz says.
