On June 20, this blog posted the sad news that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner planned to place all the Libertarian Party nominees in a party column called “Other candidates”, even though the party was circulating the petition for party status. This decision seemed a betrayal, because in 2008, the Deputy Secretary of State had said in a court affidavit that groups that successfully circulate the party petition do get their own party column on the ballot.

However, actually, the Secretary of State has arranged that the party column headings for November 2012 ballots will be “Libertarian and Other Candidates”; “Republican candidates”; and “Democratic candidates.” Of course, there is a fourth column for write-ins called “Write-in candidates”, which contains blank lines. Use this link to see a ballot. The link requires you to choose a town, so just choose any town at random. Wait a few seconds after choosing a town, and then scroll down below the list of towns to see the ballot for that town.

The format is still not ideal, because Virgil Goode, the Constitution Party presidential nominee, is within the “Libertarian and Other Candidates” column, with the word “Constitution” printed next to his name in small letters. Every other state that uses party column ballots, except New Jersey, would give the Constitution Party its own party column, even if that party only had a nominee for one office. The party column ballot-format does waste space, and it would be much better ballot design for New Hampshire, and all states, to abandon the party-column format and use an office-group format. Thanks to Seth Cohn for the link.