South Dakota requires all qualified parties to nominate by primary for most partisan offices. The Constitution Party is the only ballot-qualified party other than the two major parties.
This year, the Constitution Party attempted to place Peter Boeve on its primary ballot for Governor, and also to place Jim McEntire on its primary ballot for U.S. House. The law says that if a party has not had continuous ballot status for the preceding four years, its statewide candidates need a petition of 250 registered members to get on the party’s primary ballot. However, the Constitution Party only has about 300 registered members in the state. Also each petition must be notarized. The Constitution Party worked very hard, and got 125 signatures for each candidate, but could not get 250 signatures for each, out of a total eligible pool of only 300.
If the party had been continuously ballot-qualified over the last four years, the candidates would have needed petitions of 1% of their own party’s last general election vote for Governor. The Constitution Party’s gubernatorial candidate in November 2006 received 4,010 votes, so if the rule for continuously-established parties had also applied to the Constitution Party, the party’s candidates would only have needed 41 signatures. However, there was a break in the Constitution Party’s ballot-qualified status after November 2006 but before 2008. Because it polled less than 2.5% for Governor in November 2006, it went off the ballot, and it got back on by submitting 8,389 valid signatures in early 2008.
In 2000, when the law was worded differently, the Libertarian Party won a federal lawsuit against the 250-signature requirement. The victory was based not on constitutionality, but on how to construe the law. However, in 2007, the South Dakota legislature re-worded the law, to make it clear that the legislature wants the more stringent 250-signature requirement to apply to parties without continuous ballot status. It is likely that the law, requiring candidates to collect 250 valid signatures from a pool of only 300 eligible signers, is unconstitutional, and it is possible the candidates will sue.
This year, no Democrat is running for U.S. Senate in South Dakota, so Republican incumbent John Thune will be the only candidate on the general election ballot, unless an independent candidate qualifies before the June deadline.
I fail to see a legit state interest in such a petitioning based regulation of a political party primary.
Their has to be a difference between trying to prevent a cluttered — in this case — primary election ballot and burdening the expressive rights of citizens.
Minnesota has no ballot access requirements for filing as a major party primary candidate — unless you want to waive the filing fee. We have had 3 or 4 major parties and the primary ballot is hardly cluttered. Independents and minor party candidates do not participate in the primary, they simply petition to get on the general election ballot.
Separate is still NOT equal.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
Every election is still NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior election.
So what happens if the party has less than 250 registered members?
How many signatures does an independent need to get on the ballot?
We use the 5% rule all the time. Hence, why not give any third party instant ballot access if it gets 5% of all the votes for the winning candidate. And for independent candidates, signatures equal to 5% of all the votes for all third party candidates.
So, for instance, we have a 1992 scenario. In state x, you have Clinton 43%, Bush 37%, Perot 19% and others 1%. For a third party candidate to qualify in ’96, it would need 2.15% of the state’s votes or more to qualify. However, for an independent or new party candidate, it would require signatures equal to 1% of all the third party/independent vote.