New Hampshire Representative Joel Winters has introduced HB 1264. It makes thoughtful improvements to the ability of new and previously unqualified parties to get on the ballot.

Existing law says defines “party” to be a group that polled at least 4% for either U.S. Senate or Governor at the last election. All parties nominate by primary. A group that is not a qualified party can qualify to have all its nominees placed on the November ballot via a single petition, if that petition is signed by 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The 3% petition has existed in the law since 1996, but is so difficult it has only been used once, in 2000, by the Libertarian Party. Furthermore, the status of a group that successfully completes the 3% petition is ambiguous; it isn’t really a qualified party and voters can’t register into it and be tallied as members.

HB 1264 sets up a two-tier system of qualified parties, something that 16 other states already have. Under HB 1264, a party that polled 2% for either U.S. Senate or Governor, or which has at least 3,000 registered members, or which submits a petition of 5,000 signatures, is a qualified party. It would nominate by convention. Primaries would be reserved for parties that had met the 4% vote test that already exists in the law. This “two-tier” idea, in which there are two types of qualified political party (smaller ones nominating by convention, and larger ones nominating by primary) is also used in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The “two-tier” idea saves taxpayer money. It avoids the expense of the government putting on a primary for small qualified parties. Because it relieves the small qualified parties from submitting petitions, it also saves election administrators from the expense of checking the validity of petitions.

Another ballot access improvement bill has been introduced by Representative Shawn Jasper. It is HB 1188, a much shorter and simpler bill. It merely cuts the existing 3% petition for a group to place all its nominees on the general election ballot, to 1.5%.