On March 1, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed HB 1532. It moves the deadline for a newly-qualifying party to choose its nominees from November of the year before the election, to May of the election Year. This is the most significant ballot access improvement that has been made by any legislature so far in 2017.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
In California, voters who have organized a party still have to start “primarying” in the latter part of the year before, since we have to decide who our nominee is so we can campaign for them prior to the “primary” (really a general election with mandatory run-off between the top 2)in the late spring. Most voters aren’t paying any attention until a year later, so you have to reach them during a time when they don’t know your candidate exists.
At the so-called state primary, the top two vote-getters are the only ones allowed to be on the fall ballot, so if we want to get someone on there, we have to win one of the top two spots (often two Democrats). It is very difficult to reach voters in spring when there can be multiple candidates for each party and only two can go forward, total. The party’s voters can’t afford to split their “primary” votes, if it’s a small party–thus the need to decide who to support the prior fall.
Before “Top-2,” voters in the run-off (final) election had at least one candidate from each of at least 4 or 5 parties to choose from, instead of only two.