The Seminole Chronicle has this story, saying that because two Florida Libertarians have both announced an intention to file for the same legislative seat, election officials will conduct a Libertarian Party primary (in that district only) in 2010. The newspaper says this will be the first minor party primary in Florida history.

The claim is probably correct. Florida started giving primaries to parties in 1913, but only if the party had polled 5% of the vote for any statewide race in the last gubernatorial election. The Socialist Party, the Progressive Party, and the Prohibition Party, were each entitled to their own primaries for a few years, but it is very unlikely they had primaries, because they were only held if there were any contests. Minor parties in Florida had very few candidates, even in their strong decade in the 1910’s. In 1921 Florida changed the law to say that only parties that had polled 30% were entitled to a primary. In 1937 it changed that to 15%, and in 1939 it changed it again, to cover only parties with registration membership of at least 5% of the state total. But, in 2007, the legislature changed the law again, to say that any qualified party may have a primary if it has a contest. There have been no minor party primary contests since 2007.