Ohio has six ballot-qualified parties this year, all of whom have their own primary. The Columbus Dispatch says that one candidate for U.S. Senate filed in the primaries of each of these three qualified minor parties: Constitution (Eric W. Deaton), Libertarian (Steve Linnabary), and Socialist (Daniel LaBotz). See this story. Each candidate needed 500 signatures in order to obtain a place on his own party’s primary ballot. Any registered voter was free to sign.
Although no one filed for U.S. Senate in the Green Party primary, it is known that Dennis Spisak filed in that party’s primary for Governor.
Richard,
Dennis Spisak/Anita Rios filed 1168 signatures for Governor/Lieutenant Governor. They will likely be on the ballot across the state.
Thank you. Just about the time you sent that comment, I found the article at Green Party Watch mentioning Spisak.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s Press Release is here: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/PressReleases/2010/2010-02-18.aspx
Does Ohio print primary ballots for parties that have no more than one candidate per office, or do those candidates get the nomination automatically?
They are still mandated to print ballots even if there is only one candidate on the ballot. This would be true for major or minor parties. What is exciting is that because each party is (likely) to be on the ballot state wide. This is a good year in Ohio.
I also filed for State Rep. District 61 yesterday.
Any guesses as to how many of the minor party folks will get elected to the legislature or Congress — other than ZERO ???
P.R. and A.V.
If no one runs then no one will get elected. Americans always say they want more than two parties and this year is a step towards that end. There a lot of minor party candidates in Ohio this year and it is showing the voters that there are serious alternatives.
I’m not familiar with Eric Deaton, but Ohio voters are pretty fortunate in having two quality third-party candidates for the U.S. Senate in Dan LaBotz and Steve Linnabary. Wish we were that lucky here in Florida.