On March 23, the Maine Joint Committee on State and Local Government will hear LD 545, the bill to ease the ballot access petition for candidates seeking to get on the primary ballot of a small qualified party. Current law requires a candidate for statewide office to submit 2,000 signatures of party members to get on that party’s primary ballot. The law doesn’t take into account how many registered voters any particular party has. This makes it almost impossible for a member of a small qualified party to get on his or her own party’s primary ballot.

The bill would provide that the number of signatures is the lesser of 2,000 signatures, or 2% of the number of registered voters in the party. Currently the bill only applies to gubernatorial candidates, but it will probably be amended to include U.S. Senate as well. Maine doesn’t have elections for any other statewide offices, and has no presidential primary.