Two bills affecting minor parties and independent candidates have made some headway in Maine. LD 1169 passed the Joint Committee on State and Local Government on May 6, and LD 1041 passed the same committee on May 13.

LD 1169 deletes the requirement that a voter casting a write-in vote must also write-in the name of that candidate’s town or city, and makes other improvements for write-in candidates. LD 1041 alters the law on how a qualified party remains on the ballot. Existing law requires it to have polled 5% for the office at the top of the ticket at either of the last two elections. The bill says a party remains on the ballot if it has 10,000 registered members who voted in the last general election. The only ballot-qualified party besides the Democratic and Republican Parties is the Green Party, which has slightly over 31,000 registered voters, three-fourths of whom voted in the 2008 general election.