I'm Michael Goldfarb here on the BBC World Service.

America is going through its most volatile presidential election season in 50 years.

The next president of the United States will be decided by independent voters, people not aligned with either the Democratic

or Republican Party. Who are these independents? Keith Burris, editorial page, editor of the

Blade newspaper in Toledo, Ohio has an idea.

To me an independent is just somebody you can't make up their mind.

Well, there are a lot of Americans like that now.

The day after the California primary confirmed the nominees for president would be Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump

I went to Ohio to talk to independent voters a little more than 40% of Ohioans identify as independence.

That's the national average and to be expected because Ohio is like America in

miniature. It is mostly rural but also has big ethnically diverse cities. It

shares many characteristics with the South, which begins just over the Ohio River. It has suffered

grievously from America's transition to a post-industrial economy.

But the main reason for visiting this of all the 50 states is Ohio's voters have gone for

the winner in every presidential election of the last half century.

Listening to independent voices might give a sense of how the country will vote in this most

chaotic year. Bethany and Aaron Dennis live in Brookville, Ohio, rural, but close to Dayton.

Aaron 32 works in IT.

Bethany, 23, studies political science at Wright State University on the other side of Dayton.

At 18, I considered myself a Republican, but after I really started studying politics, I came to realize that I didn't really fall in my ideologies with either party and that I thought that some of the issues that each party stood for.

I agreed with certain aspects in each party, but then again sometimes I had a

completely different opinion I would say than either party. My family is

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