Maryland Delegate David Moon (D-Montgomery County) has introduced HB 626. It lowers the number of registered voters needed for a party to remain ballot-qualified from 1% of the state total (about 40,000 members) to exactly 10,000 members. If the bill were to pass, the Libertarian and Green Parties would probably remain on the ballot indefinitely, instead of having to re-petition every four years.
Even though the Libertarian Party got over 1% of the gubernatorial vote in November 2014, that only puts it on the ballot for 2016. Then, in 2016, if it doesn’t poll as much as 1% for president, it would go off the ballot, unless the party meets the registration test, which the bill would ease. Thanks to Brian Bittner for this news.
The Libertarians and Greens ought to be able to get the 10,000 registrants. I doubt the Constitution[al] Party will ever convince 10,000 Marylanders to register – especially as long as they want to do away with Social Security and Medicare.
The MD LP already has more than 10,000 affiliated voters. The MD GP is a little short, but could easily do a registration drive that would put them over the top — many Greens are currently registered as Democrats because that’s the dominant party here, and they would change their party affiliation if it would help the GP.
I testified for the bill last year, as did Brian Bittner. Currently 10,000 valid petition sigs puts a party on the ballot, and I argued that affiliating with a party is much more of an expression of support than signing a petition is.
The Constitution Party used to be ballot-qualified, but hasn’t been since several court decisions a few years ago tightened up the verification requirements considerably, making it too hard for them to collect their 10,000 sigs. I would like to see that lowered to 5,000, but this is the bill that we’re working on now.