As a result of the recent election, the Oklahoma and Tennessee legislatures, for the first time ever, are under Republican control in both houses.
During the last fifteen years, legislatures in both states have considered bills to ease ballot access for minor and new parties. In each case, the bills were introduced by Republican legislators, and the bills were always killed in committee. These legislative committees have always been chaired by Democrats. With control of legislative committees now passing to Republicans, it is plausible that ballot access reform bills have a chance of passing.
For Oklahoma, that’s good, but doesn’t Tennessee already have pretty reasonable ballot access laws?
Tennessee’s law on how a new party gets on the ballot is so bad, it has not been used since 1968. But a lawsuit against it is pending. Tennessee is easy on independent candidates but horrible for minor parties. So all the minor parties always use the independent procedure and all their candidates are labeled “independent” on the ballot.