Both Kentucky and Tennessee are in the Sixth Circuit. As already noted, on July 2, 2015, the Sixth Circuit struck down Tennessee’s law on how a party remains on the ballot. The Tennessee law let an old party that met the 5% vote test remain on for four years. For example, if it met the vote test in 2010, then it would remain on automatically for both 2012 and 2014. No matter how poorly it did in 2012, it would be on in 2014.
That decision was Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett, 14-5435.
The decision could plausibly be applied to Kentucky. In Kentucky, when a party polls 2% for President, it is then safely on the ballot for four years. For example, John Anderson polled over 2% for President in 1980, under the label “Anderson Coalition.” The Anderson Coalition Party was then safely on the ballot in Kentucky for all elections in 1981 through 1984. The party was on the ballot for President again in November 1984, and since no petition was needed, Anderson appeared on the ballot in Kentucky in 1984 even though he wasn’t running in any other state. It didn’t matter that the Anderson Coalition Party (which had been allowed to re-name itself the National Unity Party) hadn’t even run anyone for any office during 1981, 1982, or 1983.
By contrast, the Libertarian Party got on the ballot for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, and polled 3.08%. The party spent a considerable amount of money on its 2014 petition for U.S. Senate. Once the 2014 election was over, the party was dumped off the ballot and not allowed to participate in 2015 (when Governor is up) or 2016, unless it did an entirely new statewide petition. The petition requirement is 5,000 signatures. It seems plausible that the Kentucky Libertarian Party can rely on the Sixth Circuit Tennessee decision to argue that it should be on the ballot automatically in 2015 and 2016, if not 2018 as well.
The other two states in the Sixth Circuit are Michigan and Ohio. Michigan requires all parties, new and old, to meet the vote test every two years, so there is no discrimination. Similarly, Ohio now allows all parties that qualify (whether by petition or by meeting the 3% vote test) to then be on for four more years. Because the Green Party met the Ohio vote test in 2014, it is on for both 2016 and 2018 (for 2014 only, the Ohio vote test was 2%, but in future elections it is 3%).
Every election is NEW —
regardless of ALL of the SCOTUS moron cases since 1968.
I.E. for MORONS —
EQUAL ballot access tests for ALL candidates for the SAME office in the SAME election area.
Great Britain and Canada agree with you. All candidates for Parliament qualify for each election, the same way. They pay a filing fee (called a deposit) plus submit a tiny petition (10 signatures in Great Britain, 100 in Canada). What happened in the preceding election has no effect on ballot access.
But the US is different. Practically every state has easier ballot access procedures for parties that did well in a preceding election.
At least SOME sanity in the UK and Canada — regardless of their tyrant parliamentary regimes.
The SCOTUS morons can NOT detect that votes for a candidate in general elections obviously do NOT show support for a robot party gang and its platform.
I presume NO State has general election ballots in which the question is asked —
Do you want the following party or parties having candidates on the next primary and/or general election ballots ???
A-Z list of parties.
Your state, Michigan, did that in the period 1976-1980, although the question was on primary ballots. Parties that didn’t get at least three-tenths of 1% of the voters to “vote” for them couldn’t appear on the November ballot. In 1982 the Michigan Supreme Court invalidated the system in a lawsuit filed by the Socialist Workers Party.
In Kentucky, each recognized political party has a representative at each precinct to check in voters.
I had a County Clerk once tell me that the state did not tell the Reform Party that they were recognized due to the fact that they didn’t want to go through the hassles of finding poll workers.
Would the state have to get Libertarian poll workers? The number of Libertarians (4880) is barely higher than the number of precincts (3734).
Kentucky, like 15 other states, has two tiers of recognized political parties: big ones that nominate by primary, and small ones that nominate by convention. I think the law on poll workers only includes parties that qualify for a primary. That type of party must have received 20% for President.