Krist Novoselic and others have formed the Cascade Party, a party that will exist only in Washington state.  It supports proportional representation and wants to be a ballot-qualified party so as to help it run candidates for legislature.  However, the Washington definition of a qualified party is one that polled 5% for president in the last election.

Therefore, its first step is to qualify for the presidential ballot this year.  Then it will engage in lobbying and a potential lawsuit to change the state’s definition of a party.  That definition has only existed since 2004.  Before 2004, a qualified party was one that polled 5% for any statewide office.  Since the definition changed, only the Democratic and Republican Parties have been ballot-qualified in Washington.

Here is the party’s website.  Washington permits a group to get on for president with 1,000 signatures, which can be collected on-line.  The party’s website illustrates how the petition can be circulated.  Because the law requires the group to identify its national ticket, the party is running James Carroll for president and Krist Novoselic for vice president, but assuming they qualify, they will then withdraw as part of their plan to change the definition of “party.”

The Democratic Party appears likely to formally nominate candidates for president and vice-president on Sunday, July 21.  There would be no physical meeting.  All the delegates were vote using an electronic meeting.  See this story.

The physical convention in Chicago in August would thus be deprived of much of its meaning.

John Rust, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Indiana this year, but who was kept off the primary ballot, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal.  Rust v Morales.  When the cert petition is posted on the U.S. Supreme Court, this post will be amended to include a link.

He was kept off the primary ballot because of a new law that said no one could be on a primary ballot who had not voted in that same party’s primary in previous years.  He had won in the state trial court, but then the Indiana Supreme Court had reversed.

See this story.