The Socialist Party has filed a document with the Maine Secretary of State, saying the party intends to qualify as a party. Therefore, election officials will allow voters to register into the Socialist Party, to see if it can obtain at least 5,000 registrants by January 2020, the deadline. The Libertarian Party has also filed the notice. The Libertarian Party hopes to file a lawsuit soon to regain its 5,500 registrants that were converted to independents earlier this month. If the party had its registrants back, it would meet the threshold to be a new party again.
Richard, FYI we have a problem here in West Virginia where the voter registration form was poorly redesigned omitting the underlined space where a registrant could write in the name of the unqualified party with which they desire to affiliate. Some county election clerks are now under the mistaken impression that they no longer have to record a party which a voter might be able to squeeze into the narrow space after the “Other” box.
Here is a link to the new form: https://sos.wv.gov/FormSearch/Elections/Voter/mail%20in%20voter%20registration%20application.pdf
We are currently trying to get this resolved, but what seems to exacerbate it is the Secretary of State’s obsession with informing voters that some parties let independents vote in their primaries. They now have that info repeated twice on the form taking up valuable real estate, once in the instructions, and again in block 1. All they really need to do is put the title “Party Affiliation” in block 1, and then use “None” instead of “No Party.” Makes it real simple and obvious.
Which Socialist Party is it?
I’m guessing SPUSA, but yeah, I know there’s Socialist Action there as well, so clarification would be nice, but I’m betting on SPUSA.
Do they believe there are 5,000+ Socialist Party members in Maine? They already have the Democrats, er, sorry, “Progressives” and the Greens.
@Michael Skaggs Most main line Democrats are social democrats not progressives. They’re not even liberal they’re moderates… real social liberals are the libertarians.
Here is rhe press release from the SOS regarding the disenrollment of Libertarian party voters.
https://www.maine.gov/sos/news/2018/liberarianparty.html
The Libertarian Party should act expeditiously to preserve registration records.
The voter registration form is confusing. It has check boxes for the three qualified parties followed by a check box for “other qualifying parties”. There is then a line that appears to separate these check boxes from a check box for “unenrolled”. The line is actually a line to fill in the name of the qualifying party.
The term “other qualifying party” is confusing since it can mean the same a “other qualified party”. The instructions are not particularly helpful since they simply warn if a voter leaves the line blank the voter will be registered as unenrolled.instead of explaining what to use the line for, it states what happen if you leave the line blank.
If a party is “qualified” in Maine it has its own exclusionary party primary. But it is difficult for a minor party candidate to qualify for that primary ballot. A Maine house candidate only needs 25 signaturex, but those must be from Libertarian registrants. The sole Libertarian candidate had to convince several voters to change their registration simply to get on the ballot with 25 signatures. One voter accidentally used his birthdate when signing – it was a few days later. The petition was challenged by a Democratic Party lawyer. Fortunately the candidate had a picture of the application with a date stamp. The lawyer brayed that he did not know if the date stamp had been altered.
For that one district the RCV primary was easy as One. (Period). For all the other races it was even easier.
If one can vote in a primary, there is no reason to register in a party. And if there is not enough registrants, the party can not make nominations.
Maine should eliminate partisan registrations and have and use Top 2 primaries. If they like they could use RCV in the primary, which would comply with the Maine Constitution. Maine already permits inependent candidates to choose a description.
How much UNEQUAL party stuff in ALL 50 rotted minority rule gerrymander State regimes ???
Like compiling the slave laws in 1860 in the then about 36 States.