New Hampshire Representative Steven Smith (R-Charlestown) will introduce a bill to ease ballot access for independent candidates and minor parties. The legislature won’t be in session until 2014, but legislators can introduce bill drafts at any time, and Smith is submitting his proposal this week.
New Hampshire has not had a ballot-qualified party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, since November 1996. The only other states that have not had a ballot-qualified third party during the entire period since 1996 are New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Yet New Hammpshire holds itself out to the nation as a state that is one of the most civic-minded and democratic states in the nation, and then uses that assertion to bolster its claim to permanently have the nation’s earliest presidential primary. Thanks to Darryl Perry for the news about Representative Smith.
So have those free staters made a difference in N.H. Maybe not on ballot access.
The Free Staters don’t seem to pay attention to election law.
You mention that the bill would be an improvement, but what is that proposed improvement?
The bill would treat all parties equally, would give “party status” to any party that received 1% of the total number of votes cast for any one of the following: the office of governor or the offices of United States senators. Party Status would allow voters to register as a voter with that party, and would grant the party a primary.
The filing fee would be the same for all candidates regardless of party affiliation.
The full text of the proposal can be read here.