On Wednesday, the New Hampshire House expects to take up HB 1188, which cuts the number of signatures required for independent candidates down to only two-thirds of the existing requirements. For example, the statewide requirement would drop from 3,000 to 2,000. The bill also lowers the petition to create a new ballot-qualified party from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5% of the number of registered voters, which is a modest improvement in midterm years, although not much of an improvement in presidential years.

Petitioning is more difficult in New Hampshire than in any other state. New Hampshire is the only state that limits a petition sheet to just one voter. Each sheet has many blanks that must be filled out, which increases the workload. Also it isn’t easy for a petitioner to keep possession of so many separate pieces of paper. Also, New Hampshire is one of only eight states that has a distribution requirement for statewide petitions. Partly because of these details, the Green Party has never been on the ballot for a statewide candidate in New Hampshire, except for President in 2000.

New Hampshire only required 1,000 signatures for statewide petitions, and had no distribution requirement, until the 1980’s.

The House will also be voting on HB 1264, which authorizes interim study on what the requirements should be for petitions to create a new ballot-qualified party. That is expected to pass easily. HB 1188 only passed the Election Law Committee on an 8-6 vote, so the House vote is somewhat difficult to predict.