On September 20, a subcommittee of the New Hampshire election laws House Committee held another hearing on HB 48, the bill to ease ballot access. This meeting, like the one on September 12, was 90 minutes long. It seems likely that the subcommittee will approve some bill that eases ballot access, or the definition of “party”. It is fairly likely the bill will lower the number of signatures needed for a group to qualify all of its nominees. Currently that petition is 3% of the last vote cast. That procedure has existed since 1996 and has only been used once. Currently it requires 12,524 valid signatures. The bill may amend that to a flat 5,000 signatures. Thanks to Ken Blevins for this news.
Best of luck to you all. It was just NH and Oklahoma that did not get the Libertarian Party on in 2004, right? In Oklahoma, since 2002 we have introduced three bills to lower our recognition party requirement to 5,000 and never got a hearing or a committee vote, which lead to our current initiative petition effort for 5,000. http://www.OkVoterChoice.org
David Splinter, Vice-Chair, OK Libertarian Party
The New Hampshire Libertarain Party not making on the ballot in 2004 was a disgrace. They were only going for the Presidential candidate only for ballot status and they only needed 3,000 signatures and they screwed this up.
New Hampshire ballot access procedures are far more difficult than outsiders realize. The petitions must be segregated by town. All the petitions for a particular town must be taken to that town clerk. The circulators must then return to the town clerk, after the town clerk has finished checking the signatures, and transport them to the Secretary of State’s office. This considerably increases the time involved. Furthermore, New Hampshire has a severe distribution requirement; 1,500 signatures must be obtained from each of the two US House districts. In 2004 the Libertarian Party candidate for Governor had 3,000 valid signatures, but they weren’t distributed properly.
New Hampshire was one of only 4 states with a Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly in 2006 for all the statewide offices (the others were Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Alabama). In 2004, New Hampshire voters had fewer choices on the November presidential ballot than any state except Oklahoma. And New Hampshire is one of only 4 states that has not had a ballot-qualified party on the ballot at any time in the last 10 years (the others are Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Tennessee). Also New Hampshire is the only state that has not tallied the registrations of any party (other than the Dems & Reps) at any time in the last 10 years.