Ballot Access News

Here is the text of HR 453, the bill introduced on January 26 by North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler to require the states to use bipartisan redistricting commissions to draw boundaries for U.S. House boundaries. The bill has a special procedure for Nebraska, which has a nonpartisan state legislature.

At the close of registration for the November 2010 election, 26.4% of all registered voters were registered outside the two major parties (these figures, of course, only relate to the 29 states that have registration by party, plus D.C.). It is unfortunate that no bill in Congress, to reform procedures for redistricting, has any procedure for those voters to participate in redistricting commissions. California’s new procedure for a redistricting commission includes them.

The Nashville/Davidson County Libertarian Party has set up this web page to help Tennessee activists lobby for a new, better ballot access law for minor parties. As the page explains, the old law was declared unconstitutional last year. The page also features an ideal new law. The wording for the new law is identical to what was introduced in the 2007 session of the legislature. The 2007 bills, SB 288 and HB 626, did not pass.

A bill to revise the old, unconstitutional law, SB 129, has been introduced this year already, but it is not as good as the 2007 bills. SB 129 would still require new parties to nominate by primary; it would leave in place the March petition deadline; it would require 16,017 signatures; and it keeps the old state policy that assumes someone who merely signs the petition to put a party on the ballot is considered a member of that party. Furthermore, SB 129 says voter registration forms in Tennessee should begin to ask voters to choose a party (or to choose independent status), which is a different subject than ballot access and which ought to be in a separate bill.

On February 1, the North Carolina Free the Vote Coalition held a well-attended press conference outside the North Carolina legislative office building. See here. The purpose of the press conference was to publicize the introduction of the bill to improve ballot access for independent candidates and new and previously unqualified parties. The bill was introduced on February 2 and is HB 32. Also see this AP story.

North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are the only states in which neither “Green Party” or “Constitution Party” (or any of the Constitution Party’s alternate names in certain states) have ever appeared on any ballot. Even in Georgia, the Green Party has been on the ballot in at least one local partisan race.