The oldest continuously ballot-qualified party (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties of each state) is the New York Conservative Party, which has been on the ballot since 1962. The second oldest continuously ballot-qualified party is the American Independent Party of California, on since 1968. The third oldest continuously ballot-qualified party is the Liberty Union Party of Vermont, on since 1970.
Vermont law says a party is entitled to its own primary if it polled 5% for at least one statewide office in the last election. Most of the time, Liberty Union meets that threshold, but this year it didn’t. Its best statewide percentage this year was 3.75%. Consequently, it is still on the ballot, but it must nominate by convention in 2010. Other years in which the party failed to poll 5% for any statewide office are 1970, 1972, 1988, 1996, 1998, and 2002.
Liberty Union Party has always nominated someone for president who was the national nominee of a party of the left. At various times, Liberty Union has nominated the presidential nominees of the Peoples Party, the Socialist Party, the New Alliance Party, and the Workers World Party.
Peter Diamondstone, one of the party’s founders, has run for a Vermont statewide office, as a Liberty Union nominee, in all elections 1970 through 2008, except that in 1974 he only ran in the Democratic primary, and not as a Liberty Union nominee.
Vermont makes it fairly easy for a party to poll 5% for a statewide office, because the state elects six statewide state offices every two years. Vermont and New Hampshire are the only remaining states that still elect a Governor every two years, instead of every four years.
‘Vermont makes it fairly easy for a party to poll 5% for a statewide office, because incumbents are not opposed by the other major party sometimes’
that’s another way to put it.
But Moore got more votes in the primary than he got on 11/4.
President: Brian Moore 141 0.0%
House: Jane Newton 5,307 1.7%
Governor: Peter Diamondstone 1,710 0.5%
Lieutenant Governor: Ben Mitchell 3,639 1.1%
Treasurer: Murray Ngoima 6,423 2.1%
Secretary Of State: Leslie Marmorale 3,871 1.2%
Auditor: Jerry Levy 10,788 3.7%
Attorney General: Rosemarie Jackowski 7,505 2.5%
And Diamondstone ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1974 and lost in the primary. Diamondstone did win the Democratic nomination for Congress in 2000.
Hmm, I thought the threshold was 2%.
Mr Anon, that number for Moore (from the VT SOS website) is one of the lower ones I’ve seen. Both the NY Times election board and uselectionsatlas.org has higher numbers. I would be more inclined to trust the SOS numbers, but it’s entirely possible that they will change over the next few weeks or so. I remain hopeful.
Vermont Secretary of State says its figures are final. Unfortunately, again, Vermont failed to reveal the vote cast for any write-in presidential candidates, even though she had been asked to at least reveal the write-in vote for Cynthia McKinney, the most prominent presidential candidate who wasn’t on the ballot. Vermont doesn’t have a write-in candidate filing procedure and the state never reveals the write-in totals for any presidential candidate. The state says “anyone can come into our office and look it up”, but the trouble with that is it isn’t official and none of the publications that tally up the vote for president in the entire nation will use the information.
Thanks to Mr. Anon for the detail about Peter Diamondstone in 1974; I altered the post.
One more time, on Green Mountain strategies:
Vermont Progressive Tony Pilona should have run and WON for Lt. Governor. [Told ya so, told ya so]!
The &@%#$#@ Dems were the spoiler this round.
I thought the Prohibition Party was the longest continuously balloted party, going back to 1868 (or 1872). Do they not count because they were called the Statesman Party for one or two elections?
The Prohibition Party wasn’t on the ballot in any state for any office in either 2006 or 2002. And even if it had been, I was talking about parties being continuously on the ballot in a single state.
Peter Diamondstone is very persistent and he certainly deserves our admiration for that. It is wonderful that he has stood up for the Liberty Union Party for so long.
“Rationality and Science Education” (most of us know who you are) made a very good point in #5. post above. Tony Pilona would probably have won had he run for Lt. Governor of Vermont as the Progressive Party nominee.