Ballot Access News

The November 19 Durango (Colorado) Herald has this interesting article, summarizing gains in election law for minor parties and independent candidates in Colorado this year.

The article quotes Dick Wadhams, chair of the Colorado Republican Party, as saying that one of these changes injures political parties.  The truth is just the opposite.  This year, all political parties in Colorado won the right (in state court) to choose any registered voter when they replace a nominee with a new nominee.  The ruling applies to the major parties just as it applies to minor parties.  Yet Wadhams seems to think that greater freedom for political parties to choose whomever they wish is “destructive.”

On November 2, Arizona voters voted on Proposition 112, to move the petition deadline for initiatives from four months before the general election, to six months before the general election.  Arizona has now counted all ballots, and the measure stands at 792,697 votes in favor, to 792,825 votes against.  With a margin of only 128 votes, the measure will be recounted.  See this story.

The Arizona ballot pamphlet contains ten paid messages advocating that voters pass Proposition 112, and no message or argument advocating a “no” vote.  The legislature had put this measure on the ballot with unanimous votes in both houses.  Elections officials wanted the earlier deadline because it is difficult to check initiative petitions in time for the ballots to be printed in early September, when the petition deadline is in early July.

In 2008, when the 9th circuit struck down Arizona’s early June petition deadline for independent candidates, in a case filed by Ralph Nader, one of Nader’s arguments was that an early June petition deadline wasn’t really needed, because the state had a July petition deadline for initiatives.  After Nader won the case, the legislature moved the independent presidential petition to early September, but moved the independent petition deadline for candidates for other office to May.  The initiative petition deadline is in the State Constitution so it can’t be changed without a popular vote.

The twentynine states with registration by party, plus the District of Columbia, reported in October or November 2010 that 73.5% of all voters are registered Democrats or registered Republicans.  This is the lowest percentage for the two major parties since before 1980, and probably the lowest ever.  There was no such thing as registration into political parties, on voter registration forms, before the 1910’s decade.  The idea that people should be asked to choose a party on a voter registration form did not arise until after the start of direct primary elections.

At the spring 2010 tallies, the two major parties had 73.8% of the registration.  In October 1992, the two major parties had 80.7% of the registration.  The December 1 2010 printed Ballot Access News will contain registration data by party and by state.