Ballot Access News

On May 3, the Alabama Senate Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics & Elections Committee passed HB 425. This is the bill that moves the primary for all office from June to the 2nd Tuesday in March. It has the effect of moving the petition deadline for minor parties and non-presidential independent candidates from June to March, because the existing law says those petitions are due on the date of the non-presidential primary.

As noted earlier, in 1991 the 11th circuit invalidated Alabama’s April petition deadline for new parties, and that case didn’t even involve a presidential election. Precedents against early petition deadlines for minor parties and independent candidates are stronger in presidential elections than they are in elections for other office. At the time of the 1991 decision, Alabama’s petition was 1% of the last gubernatorial vote; not it is 3% of the last gubernatorial vote.

Fairvote Canada has already analyzed the Canadian election of May 2. Here is the proportion of the national popular vote won by each of Canada’s five leading parties: Conservative 40%, New Democratic 31%, Liberal 19%, Bloc Quebecois 6%, Green 4%.

By contrast, here is the percentage of seats won in Parliament by each of those parties: Conservatives 54%, New Democratic 33%, Liberal 11%, Bloc Quebecois 1%, Greens less than 1%. Thus the Conservative Party has an absolute majority in Parliament even though fewer than 40% of the voters voted for that party.

One hopes the British voters notice these results. British voters will vote in two days on whether to switch from “first past the post” to Instant Runoff Voting. One could wish the British were given a chance to vote on Proportional Representation, but even a vote for IRV will signal dissatisfaction with the existing system. Of course, the United States also uses “first past the post” for all its federal elections. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

On May 2, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller interpreted Nevada election law to mean that when the state holds a special U.S. House election on September 13, there will be no party nominees. Candidates will qualify for the ballot without regard to whether any particular party has nominated them. See this story. This will be Nevada’s first special election for U.S. House ever, so there are no precedents. Other states in which parties do not nominate candidates in special congressional elections are Georgia, Hawaii, and Texas. Those three states do let any candidate choose any party label.

Here is the Secretary of State’s schedule. It seems to indicate that the Secretary of State expects independent candidates to need a petition, whereas members of qualified parties do not. That is not logical, given that there will be no party nominees. In the other states in which there are no party nominees in special congressional elections, the ballot access hurdles for each candidate are equal and identical. But, because independents only need 100 signatures, it seems unlikely that any independent will sue. An earlier version of this post said they need 250, but the correct requirement is 100.

The Nevada schedule implies that each candidate will have a party label on the ballot.