On June 12, the Maine legislature passed HB 1571 and sent it to the Governor. It makes some improvements for ballot access for new parties. It makes it easier for newly-qualifying parties to remain on the ballot, by giving them two elections to increase their registration to 10,000 people who will actually go to the polls and cast a vote. Also it slightly improves the deadline for a new party to get its necessary 5,000 registrants to qualify for the first time. And, it sets up a procedure to resolve any dispute as to whether the group successfully did get 5,000 registrants.
Assuming the bill is signed into law, it will still be flawed. It is fundamentally irrational to require a newly-qualifying party to have 5,000 registrants to get on, but 10,000 to remain on. If 5,000 means that the party has a modicum of support, then that is true no matter how young or old the party is. Also the new deadline, January of the election year, is still far too early to survive a constitutional challenge by some new party in the future.
The bill passed on voice votes, with apparently no opposition.
It is fundamentally irrational to require any people to register with a party especially before they know who the candidates might be. Better to wait and then count the write-in votes for the party’s candidates before styling them as state-recognized parties, if that is even necessary.
Even if a party has 10,000 people registered under their party banner, it is no guarantee that all 10,000 of them are going to actually vote in a general election. A party would likely need to have a lot more than 10,000 registered voters in order to meet this requirement.
In a candidate-based system there is no rational basis for requiring a modicum of support before recognizing a political party. The justification for a modicum of support is based on the government financing and operating the nomination process for parties.
Persons elected to office are free to change their allegiance to any political party. Why should voters be compelled to declare an allegiance BEFORE an election when those elected are free to abandon such pledges with impunity? Impunity for some, then impunity for for all.