On February 27, the Minnesota House Government Operations & Elections Policy Committee passed HB 1393. It moves the primary from the second Tuesday in August to the first Tuesday after the third Monday in June. If signed into law, the bill won’t take effect until 2020. But if it were law now, the primary would not be August 14; instead it would be June 19.
If this bill becomes law, the Minnesota ballot access law for new party petitions will be unconstitutional. That petition deadline would move from May to March. The petition requires 5% of the last vote cast, which in 2018 would be 147,247 signatures. This petition is so severe, it has existed since 1913 and it has never been used statewide. Already it was probably unconstitutional under McLain v Meier, an 8th circuit decision from 1980 that struck down North Dakota’s party petition because it had only been used once and required the signatures of 3.3% of the eligible signers.
North Dakota in 1980 let candidates who use the independent procedure choose a party label, and independent candidates never needed more than 300 signatures. But North Dakota’s easy access for independent candidates did not save that state’s party petition. Minnesota also has a relatively easy independent candidate petition. No one ever needs more than 2,000 signatures, and a party label is permitted. But, under McLain v Meier, that would not save the Minnesota party petition.
More separate and UNequal stuff.
How did the Independence Party qualify
The same way the Socialist Party qualified in North Dakota in 1912, by running an independent candidate with the party label and polling 5% of the statewide vote.
In that case, the solution is to get rid of partisan nominations.
The obvious solution is to let newly-qualifying parties nominate by convention, which is already policy in most states, including Texas.
Texas requires a lot of voters attend those conventions. Remember that there are no nominations for special elections in Texas.
Texas does not require any minimum attendance at minor party conventions.
It permits the attendance count to be supplemented by petitions signed by voters who were eligible to attend those conventions.
If you don’t have party nominations, you don’t have to qualify groups to make nominations.