August 4 was the deadline for the Progressive Party of Oregon to bring its registration up to one-tenth of 1% of the 2006 gubernatorial vote. That requirement is 1,380 registrants. The party succeeded, with approximately 1,800 registered members.
The party had already been ballot-qualified. It won that status by polling over 1% of the presidential vote in 2008 for its candidate, Ralph Nader. But Oregon requires a minimum number of registrants, even for parties that satisfy the vote test. Parties have almost two years after they first met the vote test, to satisfy the registration test.
The party had originally been named the Peace Party, but it changed its name in September 2009. But that meant it had to scramble to satisfy the registration test, because people who had been registered in the Peace Party would not automatically be converted into being members of the party under its new name. It was necessary for those voters to fill out a new voter registration form, if they wanted to continue being members. Of course the party was free to persuade any voters, not just former members, to register into it to help it meet the requirement. Thanks to Dan Meek for this news.
Oregon’s other ballot-qualified minor parties easily met the registration test. They are the Constitution, Green, Independent, and Libertarian Parties. Oregon has more ballot-qualified parties than any other state in the west.
Let me offer my hearty congratulations to the Progressive Party, and to the Independent Party, of Oregon! Contrary to what I had indicated in a recent post on a previous page, I might possibly register with one of those two parties mentioned above if I lived in Oregon rather than the Golden State.
The Peace and Freedom Party of California has had just about three decades to affiliate with a national party. (It was in the latter part of 1979 when PFP-CA’s national affiliate, the Peoples Party, fell apart. That is a very long time ago and I think that any reasonable person could fully understand the frustration on the part of those of us who think that one-state parties, that stay that way, are not generally a good idea.)
Why haven’t they affiliated with SPUSA?
Washington doesn’t have any ballot qualification standard for parties. Legislative candidates have expressed a preference for 15 different parties, and other candidates have expressed no party preference.
Thank you, Vaughn, for the excellent question. The best answer that I could get from the leaders that I have pushed on this issue is that there are many activists in PFP-CA that do not like SPUSA and that PFP-CA is a “broad front” party that wants to appeal to all of the little left parties that wish to participate. If you ask me, that is a recipe for dysfuntional politics. It is very ironic, then, that the leadership of PFP-CA has spent so much time and energy fighting off take-over attempts. In my revisionist view, two or three take-overs would probably have been good for the Party.
In order to clarify my thinking in the post above, let me say this: “Broad Front” coalitions can be very good if they are structured as organizations (a la, the Popular Unity Coalition of Chile in the early 70’s and prior); it is just that I do not think that it is wise for a single political party to act as a broad front organization.