U.S. DISTRICT COURT STRIKES EARLY KENTUCKY DEADLINE

On January 22, U.S. District Court Judge William Bertelsman, a Carter appointee, struck down the Kentucky law that requires independent candidates, and the nominees of parties that nominate either by petition or by convention, to file a declaration of candidacy by January. The law only applies to candidates for state and local office, not federal office. Sweeney v Crigler e.d., 2:19cv-46.

The state is not expected to appeal. Most members of the State Board of Elections had wanted to settle the lawsuit soon after it was filed, but one member did not, and she is responsible for the state choosing to try to defend its law.

The Kentucky decision makes the 54^th court decision striking down early deadlines for minor party or independent candidates. See the March 1, 2019 B.A.N. for a list of the other decisions. Furthermore, that list doesn’t include cases involving special elections

The decision quotes Anderson v Celebrezze, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down an Ohio petition deadline for independent presidential candidates. That quote is, "Yet Ohio’s filing deadline prevents persons from entering the significant political arena…at any time after mid-to-late March. At this point developments in campaigns for the major-party nominations have only begun, and the major parties will not adopt their nominees and platforms for another five months."

The Kentucky case had been brought by the Libertarian Party, which argued that it is difficult for the party to recruit candidates so early. The state argued that it is not burdensome to file a one-page declaration of candidacy, but the decision quotes another ballot access precedent, Cromer v State of South Carolina, 917 F.2d at 823, which struck down a similar law in South Carolina.

The Cromer decision says, "It is true that the specific logistical burden of filing is minimal; it involves a simple, easily done physical act, and a decision which commits to nothing. But that is not the problem. The problem is in having to make the draconian decision at a time when a rational basis for making it does not exist. At this time the party candidates have not been chosen, and even the identity of those who may become candidates may not be known."

Other lawsuits are pending against early deadlines in Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, and Texas.

This new Kentucky decision, and the other 53 precedents that agree with it, all suggest that the California top-two system could not withstand a new challenge. Because California holds its 2020 primary for congress and partisan state office in March, all candidates had to file by December 2019. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court, and many lower courts, have held that states cannot shut off all routes to the general election ballot that early.

When the Ninth Circuit upheld the Washington top-two system in 2012, it said, "The primary is in August, not March…Libertarian Party candidates thus have an opportunity to appeal to voters at a time when election interest is near its peak." Washington State Republican Party v Washington State Grange, 676 F.3d 784 (2013).

Clearly, voter interest in congressional elections, and legislative elections, is nowhere near its "peak" in March of an election year.

Ironically, in 2000, the U.S. State Department filed a human rights complaint against Azerbaijan, concerning its new election law that said parties had to have been created at least six months before an election, or they could not get on the ballot.

On January 17, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the two cases on whether presidential electors are free to vote for any qualified candidate when they cast an Electoral College vote in December. The two cases are Chiafalo v Washington, 19-465; and Colorado Department of State v Baca, 19-518. The Court has determined that the Chiafalo case number will be used for all briefs, so when the decision comes out, it will be recorded as Chiafalo v Washington.

If the Court rules that electors do have freedom, it seems likely that public support for the Electoral College will erode. In 2016, seven electors voted for someone for President other than the candidate who received the most popular votes in their state, but three others tried and were foiled. If there are no barriers to elector freedom in 2020, that number may increase. Is it difficult to believe that the people of the United States would be happy with a system in which 535 little-known individuals would have total power over choosing the president.

On January 14, the SAM Party of New York state filed a federal lawsuit against the new law that requires parties to poll 130,000 votes for President (or 2% of the total, whichever is more) in order to remain on the ballot. SAM Party v Cuomo, s.d., 1:20cv-323.

The party argues that it was only organized to contest office within New York state and that it doesn’t want to run anyone for President. The case is assigned to Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee.

1. On January 9, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld a state law that gives political parties complete control over which candidates may appear on their presidential primary balllot. De La Fuente v Simon, A19-1994. As a result, President Donald Trump will not face any opposition in the Republican presidential primary in Minnesota. The Court did not explain the basis for its decision, but says it will explain later.

2. On January 16, U.S. District Court Judge J. P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, upheld a Georgia law giving parties complete control over which presidential candidates appear on the presidential primary ballot. As in Minnesota, as a result, the Georgia Republican ballot will list only President Trump. De La Fuente v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:19cv-5323.

The Georgia decision says that the state has a compelling interest in protecting freedom of association for parties. This is not convincing. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1970’s, and again in the 1980’s, that national conventions of political parties are free to seat whichever delegates they wish. And in 1996 the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. circuit, upheld a Democratic Party bylaw that said the party was free to have a rule saying that delegates pledged to Lyndon LaRouche would not be seated. So there is already plenty of protection for party control over their own nominations process, without injuring voting rights in a publicly-administered presidential primary.

Both Georgia and Minnesota have open primaries. Any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot. The result of these decisions will probably be to minimize the number of voters who choose a Republican primary ballot, and instead motivate Republican-leaning voters to choose a Democratic primary ballot. Thus, ironically, these decisions could injure party freedom of association.

Arizona: on January 9, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the lawsuit De La Fuente v Hobbs, 19-16868. This case had been filed in 2016 by Rocky De La Fuente, challenging the state’s independent presidential petition requirement. The requirement has not been used since 2008, and it requires more signatures than are needed for the party petition. The case was dismissed because De La Fuente had not filed his opening brief.

California: the lawsuit Soltysik v Padilla is currently pending in U.S. District Court. It concerns the California law that won’t let members of unqualified parties have their party label on the ballot. Recently both sides agreed to postpone the trial from September 2020 until January 2021. The case was filed in 2015.

Delaware: on January 21, the state filed its opening brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Carney v Adams, 19-309. This is the case over the Delaware law that says an independent can never be eligible to be appointed to most judicial posts. The case was filed by a registered independent who had in the past been a registered Democrat. The state says that the law should be upheld because the plaintiff, James R. Adams, is guilty of "self-injury". In other words, if he wanted to be a judge, he should have kept his registration in the Democratic Party. This is analogous to saying that if someone is discriminated against because of his or her religion, the person simply should not have chosen that religion.

Maine: U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker, a Trump appointee, will hold a trial in Baines v Dunlap, 1:19cv-509, starting on July 7. This is the Libertarian Party case that challenges the January deadline for new parties to complete their registration drive, and also the law that makes it extremely difficult for a member of a small qualified party to get on his or her own party’s primary ballot.

South Dakota: on January 9, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Kornmann, a Clinton appointee, struck down the law that requires initiative circulators to register with the Secretary of State. The information would be publicly available, and it would include all of the circulator’s phone numbers, all the e-mail addresses, the circulator’s home address, and where the circulator is registerd. It would also ask if the circulator is a convicted sex criminal. SD Voice v Noem, 1:19cv-1017.

national: the lawsuit over general election presidential debates, Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, 19-5117, will be argued in the D.C. Circuit on February 24.

Indiana State Senator Greg Walker has again introduced his bill to lower the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from 2% of the last vote for Secretary of State, to one-half of 1%. It also lowers the vote test from 2% to one-half of 1%. Those requirements existed in Indiana between 1933 and 1983, and the Indiana ballot was never crowded.

Walker is chair of the Senate Elections Committee, so this bill will probably advance soon. Advocates of the bill will be trying to educate the state legislators that Indiana now requires more signatures to get on for president, as a percentage of that state’s last presidential vote, than any other state (when the easiest method in each state is compared).

B.A.N. recently learned that late in 2019, the Pennsylvania legislature repealed the law requiring ballot access petitions to be notarized. The repeal was included in SB 421, the same bill that expanded voting rights and eliminated the straight-ticket device.

The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties: Poised for Political Revival? by Bernard Tamas, Routledge, 2018, 195 pages.

Bernard Tamas is a political scientist professor at Valdosta State University in Georgia. On the very first page of the book, in the Acknowledgements section, he writes, "This book began as a study of the impact of ballot access laws on third parties…We began with the assumption that ballot access laws had a significant, negative impact on American third parties, as had been argued throughout the third-party literature, and so our goal was to specify in more detail how these laws helped secure the overwhelming domination of the Democratic and Republican parties. Instead, after tracing the history of these laws through each state’s session laws, which we found mostly on microfiche in the basement of the University of Illinois’s College of Law library, we discovered to our surprise that there was little relationship between these election laws and third-party activity and voter support."

Professor Tamas deserves praise for undertaking a scholarly study of the history of U.S. ballot access laws. Very few academics have done this. He chose to study the U.S. House ballot access requirements, and to write about the number of minor party candidates who get on the ballot for U.S. House. The choice of U.S. House elections enables him to make comparisons for the entire range of U.S. history, because the U.S. has had popular elections for U.S. House ever since 1788.

By contrast, U.S. Senate elections didn’t exist until 1914. He excludes presidential elections because he wanted to minimize the impact of particular personalities on the study. He did not explain why he didn’t use gubernatorial elections, or elections for other statewide state office.

Uufortunately, he and his graduate student assistants did not understand the full range of ballot access barriers. The book only looks at two ballot access variables: (1) the number of signatures needed to put a party on the ballot; (2) the vote percentage needed for a party to remain on the ballot.

The book does not mention filing fees. Thus, on page 58, he quotes with approval the finding of two other researchers who say that even after Florida eliminated mandatory petition requirements for minor parties in 1999, the number of minor party candidates for U.S. House in Florida barely increased. The reason for that, which is not mentioned, is that even after the mandatory petitions were abolished, the filing fee remained at 6% of the annual salary for Congress, which for some years now has been over $10,000.

The book does not mention the problem that sometimes, even though a minor party is on the ballot, it still can’t run candidates for U.S. House because the laws on how their members get on their own party’s primary ballot are too stringent. This is especially a problem in Arizona, Maine, and Massachusetts. For example, in all the years the Green Party has been ballot-qualified in Maine, it has never been able to run anyone for either house of congress, because its members need 2,000 signatures of party members to run for U.S. Senate, and 1,000 for U.S. House. The same statement can be said about the Reform Party and the Libertarian Party in Maine.

The book does not mention the top-two laws in California and Washington, which have kept all minor party candidates off the general election ballot in races in which a Republican and a Democratic filed in the same race.

The book says nothing about early petition deadlines. Even though courts have struck them down in many cases, some states still have petition deadlines in the year before the election! This is true in Arizona, Arkansas, California (for office other than President) and Utah.

The lynchpin for the book’s conclusion that ballot access laws have not lowered the number of minor party candidates for U.S. House is a graph (figure 3.3) on page 67, which contrasts the percentage of the electorate needed for petitions, combined with the vote test for a party to stay on the ballot, versus the percentage of districts with minor party candidates. For the period 1900-2016, one line on the graph shows the number of districts with minor party candidates to be quite high for the period 1900-1938; then the same line shows dramatic decreases, hitting bottom in 1962; then it increases starting in 1970 through 2004; and then decreases again.

The other line on the same graph shows the ballot access requirements. This is a combination of the percentage of petitions needed, and the vote test for a party to remain on the ballot. The actual graph says this line only refers to petitions, but the text of the book, when it discusses this chart, shows that it also includes the vote test for a party to remain on. This line shows that the ballot access requirements increased sharply between 1900 and 1970; then they declined until 1988; and since then they have remained approximately the same.

Because the graph shows little correlation between the ballot access barriers and the percentage of districts with minor party nominees, the author concludes that ballot access laws do not influence the number of minor party candidates.

Problems with the Graph

In 21 states, it is impossible for a minor party to place candidates for U.S. House on the ballot, with the party label, unless it first qualifies statewide. The book does not explain how it handles this problem. Presumably, for those 21 states, the books’s calculation used the independent candidate petition percentages for U.S. House, because minor party petition requirements for a single district don’t exist. The book has no listing of the ballot access requirements by state, so one is left wondering.

The book’s use of the percentage for the vote test glosses over the problem that a vote test can’t be measured solely by the percentage.

It matters hugely whether the vote test just applies to important office (such as President and/or Governor), or whether it applies to any statewide office. It is very rare for minor parties to poll 3% for President. In the entire nation during the last 100 years, only four minor parties have polled 3% of the vote. But minor party candidates for unimportant state offices, such as Labor Commissioner or Treasurer, routinely poll 3%. This is because most voters don’t care very much which major party wins those offices, so voters sympathetic to a minor party are likely to show that sympathy for giving a minor party a vote for such an office.

Another important variable is whether the vote test must be met every election, or only must be met every other election. A third important variable is whether the state has elective unimportant statewide state offices, or whether it has none. For example, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee don’t elect any partisan statewide state offices except Governor. In those states, even if the law says any statewide office counts, there are so few statewide offices that the law might as well say only Governor or U.S. Senator counts.

The book acknowledges in the text that in some states, parties get or stay on the ballot not by votes or petitions, but by how many registered voters they have. But the text then seems to dismiss this point by saying that Delaware is the only state in which registration is the only way for a party to qualify.

That disguises the fact that in 14 states, registration data (which is completely missing from the graph) supplements the petition and vote tests. The registration states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania.

Factual Errors on the Ballot Access Petition Requirements

Even if the petition and vote test requirements were the only relevant variables, it is obvious that the author made many factual errors in the substance of those laws. Page 59 has a section "What are Ballot Access Laws?" Page 62 has another section, "How Have Ballot Access Laws Changed?" These sections give examples of various ballot access laws through history, and many of them are factually incorrect. We are told that Hawaii requires a party to poll 10% of the vote to remain on the ballot. Actually, it can remain on in four different ways: (1) if it has been on the ballot for three elections in a row, then it is automatically on for the next five elections; (2) it also remains on if it polls 4% of the entire State House vote; (3) or it can poll 2% of the entire State Senate vote; (4) finally, as the book mentions, it remains on if it polls 10% for any statewide office.

We are told that Georgia’s vote test is 20%. This is partially true; parties remain on for all office if they get 20%. But we are not told that parties remain on for the statewide offices if they poll 1% (of the number of registered voters) for any statewide office.

We are told that Maine has a 5% petition requirement, but that was repealed a decade ago, and now parties get on by registering at least 5,000 members.

We are told that New Mexico requires parties to poll at least one-half of 1% for Governor or President. Actually if a qualified party avoids running anyone for either of those offices, it can remain ballot-qualified forever.

We are told that in 1900, four states required no petitions: Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, and Virginia. But actually, these additional states also required no petitions for minor parties: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. Also, Connecticut did not yet have government-printed ballots in 1900.

We are told that New Jersey initially required a petition of 5% of the last vote cast for U.S. House, but the original New Jersey law capped that at 100 signatures for U.S. House (that law has never changed)

The book says that Kansas in 1897 increased the minor party petition for U.S. House to 5%, but actually it was capped at 2,500 signatures. Also the book does not say that in 1901, Kansas greatly eased its law for minor parties and let them on with no petition whatsoever. There was a catch, however; the law made it extremely difficult for their members to get on their own party’s primary ballot, and also required parties to run nominees in at least half the statewide races. The problem was finally eased in 1955 when the law was changed so that small parties didn’t need primaries anymore.

The book says that Minnesota’s original law required a petition of 1%, but that the petition was increased to 10% in 1899. But those petition requirements were not mandatory; minor parties could also get on the ballot for U.S. House using the independent petition, which allowed use of the party label. That petition was only 1,000 signatures.

The book says on page 65 that Texas, as of 1940, had significant ballot access hurdles, but actually Texas allowed any minor party to be on the ballot with no petition, until 1967.

Page 68 says, "In California, the signature requirement was 10%", but that was not a mandatory requirement. Parties could get on with registration membership of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, and could ignore the 10% law (the 1% registration requirement was lowered in 2013 to .33% of the total state registration). Page 75 says Mississippi requires that all qualified parties nominate by primary, and that parties that poll under 20% must pay to administer their own primaries. But the book does not say that no party needs a primary if it has no primary contests, and minor parties in Mississippi never have primary contests.

The book says that the median vote test of the 50 states is 3%, but actually it has been 2% since 2000.

The book does not contain any Table that describes any ballot access law for each of the 50 states. So, one must judge the accuracy of the graphs by the various examples of particular state ballot access laws. But because there are so many errors when such laws are described, one loses confidence in the graphs and conclusions.

There is a great more to this book than just a discussion of the relationship between the ballot access laws and the number of minor party U.S. House candidates. Chapter Two discusses Duverger’s Law, which says that minor parties will always be weak in the absence of proportional representation. Chapter Four discusses whether fusion bans injure minor parties; the conclusion is that they do not. However, Tamas accuses Peter Argersinger, a prominent historian of fusion, of making errors, because Tamas notes that even after fusion was abolished in certain states (according to Argersinger), Tamas found instances in which fusion was used in that state. Tamas appears to have missed the fact that some states "abolished" fusion but left a loophole; fusion was still possible if a candidate won the primary of the other party via write-ins in the other party’s primary. That is true in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pensylvania, and until 2011, in California.

Chapter Five tries to rebut the idea, common among political scientists and historians, that when major parties were forced to nominate by primaries, that weakened minor parties because adherents of the minor parties were free to invade the major parties.

Chapter Six discusses the idea that minor parties can’t establish themselves because every time a minor party shows strength, a major party co-opts its ideas. Chapter Seven sets forth the author’s conclusion that minor parties do better when the two major parties are polarized.

Chapter Eight sets forth the thesis that minor parties don’t do very well because nowadays, electoral success requires huge financial resources which minor parties do not have. It also mentions minor party exclusion from presidential debates. Chapter Eight is certainly correct.

The book predicts that minor parties will increase in strength in the near future, but the author doesn’t make a convincing case that they will. The book was written before the 2018 elections, but in the 2018 elections, the minor party vote for the office at the top of the ticket was lower than at any previous midterm election since 1982. Most people believe the minor party vote in 2018 was weak because such a large share of the electorate is now very polarized. Whereas the book argues that polarization is good for minor parties, it seems more realistic to presume that polarization is bad for them, at least in the absence of ranked choice voting. Voters who would normally support minor parties are now so passionately opposed to one of the two major parties that they feel compelled to vote for the other major party.

See the table on page eight that shows how the number of minor party candidates for U.S. House have declined in the last decade.

Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy, by Richard L. Hasen, Yale U. Press, 187 pages.

Professor Hasen is a professor of law and political science, and is considered the nation’s leading authority on election law. Election Meltdown is his third book about election law. The first was The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown, published in 2012. The second was Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections, published 2016. He was a founder of the Election Law Journal and author of the Election Law Blog.

His newest book says, "The principal dangers facing American elections and democracy in 2020 and beyond are: (1) voter suppression; (2) pockets of electoral incompetence; (3) dirty tricks in elections; (4) rising incendiary rhetoric about stolen or rigged elections. Each of these phenomena tends to undermine voters’ trust in the fairness and accuracy of American elections."

The dictionary definition of "meltdown" is "a rapid or disastrous decline or collapse." Hasen uses the word often. For example, he had a Slate article published in 2012 titled, "Tweeting the Next Election Meltdown", and the word has appeared in the titles of two of his books.

The chapter in his new book about voter suppression opens with an amusing and enjoyable account of former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s scheme to require foreign-born citizens to attach paperwork proving their citizenship whenever they fill out a voter registration form. As the book describes, Kobach’s plan was defeated in both state and federal court. The book then describes President Donald Trump’s effort to set up a "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity", which was such a fiasco, it was soon abandoned. The suppression chapter then describes the political and legal fights over voter ID laws, and over the Supreme Court’s weakening of the federal Voting Rights Act.

The second substantive chapter, "The Weakest Link", describes failures of election administration in 2018 in Florida, Georgia, and Michigan.

Neither of the first two substantive chapters make a case that the 2020 election is in danger of a catastrophic failure. The content of these first two chapters is interesting and valuable, and the problems described are serious. But they are old problems and to a certain extent they are being handled. Voter suppression has been a U.S. problem for almost as long as the nation has existed. Election administration problems are not new either.

The next two chapters, though, do present a convincing case that in the near future, the U.S. could face an election disaster that would shake the stability of the nation. The chapter "Dirty Tricks" discusses potential sophisticated electronic attacks on the U.S. voting system by hostile nations, and manipulation of public opinion via social media.

The fourth substantive chapter, "Stolen", concerns rising incendiary rhetoric about stolen or rigged elections that is so extreme, a substantial segment of the population might utterly reject an announced election result and react violently. This chapter documents many of the statements by President Trump that could lead to such an outcome. This chapter is a very useful reference resource.

Hasen attempts to suggest solutions for these problems, but as he himself admits, there are no easy solutions. The book’s dedication, to the author’s children, sets the gloomy tone. It says, "For Deborah, Shana, and Jared, still waiting for a voting system befitting our great democracy but seeing things getting worse rather than better."

Legislators in three states have introduced bills to make it more difficult or impossible for that state to ever pass the National Popular Vote Plan.

Florida: SR 1458, and HR 323, would require that newly-elected legislators take an oath that they acknowledge the National Popular Vote Plan would be illegal. Florida has not passed the plan, although bills are pending in the Florida legislature to pass it. Those bills are HB 335 and SB 908. None of these bills has moved yet, because the legislature is not yet in session.

Missouri: HJR 99 would amend the state constitution to say that the state will not join the compact. If the legislature passes it, then voters would vote on it in November 2020.

New Hampshire: seven Representatives, all Republicans, have introduced HB 1531. It would make it illegal for any state official, or anyone who contracts with an election administrator, to release the state’s popular vote for president until after the Electoral College had met. Instead the state would only release percentages for each presidential candidate. The idea is that if the nation doesn’t have the New Hampshire vote totals, it couldn’t know the national popular vote, and that would sabotage the plan. The bill says it won’t go into effect unless the plan goes into operation in the nation as a whole.

Kentucky: on January 16, the Senate passed SB 3. It moves the gubernatorial election years from the odd year before a presidential election year, to presidential election years. If it passes the legislature, the voters will vote on the idea. If the voters pass it, it will take effect in 2028, and the candidates elected in 2023 would get five-year terms.

New York: on December 12, 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed A2047. It prohibits parties from changing their names. The old law had explicitly let newly-qualifying parties change their names, and implied that older parties could also change their names. The last time a party had changed its name was in late 2014, when the Stop Common Core Party changed its name to the Reform Party.

Virginia: on January 24, the Senate passed SB 126 on second reading, unanimously. Technically it hasn’t passed the Senate, but it is obvious that it will, given that no one voted against it on second reading. It repeals the law that lets incumbents dictate whether their party should use a convention or a primary for that particular office. That law had been held unconstitutional last year.

Virginia(2): HB 1193 would let any city or county use ranked choice voting for elections for its own officers. So far it has not moved.

Virginia(3): on January 23, the House Privileges and Elections Committee defeated HB 218, which would have required qualified parties to use primaries when they nominate statewide candidates. The same committee also defeated HB 216, which would have put party labels on the general election ballot for local partisan office.

On January 22, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard sued Hillary Clinton for slander. Gabbard v Clinton, s.d., New York, 1:20cv-558. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni, an Obama appointee who was once General Counsel to the FBI. The case has a pre-trial conference on March 6.

On January 24, Truthdig published "An Open Letter to the Green Party for 2020", which urges the Green Party to avoid campaigning for president, at least in the swing states. The letter is signed by nine progressive Democrats: Michael Albert, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Ron Daniels, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Kathy Kelly, Cynthia Peters, and Norman Solomon.

The chart below shows all candidates who will be on presidential primary ballots in the twelve states in which filing closed during the last 30 days. The January 2020 B.A.N. had the same information for the sixteen states in which filing had closed in December 2019. The chart in this issue includes the Missouri entries, even though Missouri was in the January issue. But some more candidates filed in Missouri after the last issue went to print, so the January issue wasn’t complete for Missouri.

DEMOCRATIC

IL

KY

LA

ME

MD

MA

MS

MO

OH

RI

WA

WV

WI

Michael Bennet

X

X

X

*

X

X

*

X

X

X

X

X

X

Joe R. Biden

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Michael Bloomberg

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Cory Booker

X

X

X

X

X

X

*

X

X

*

X

X

Pete Buttigieg

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Steve Burke

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Julian Castro

*

*

*

X

X

X

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

John K. Delaney

X

X

X

X

X

X

*

X

*

X

X

X

X

R. DeLaFuente III

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Tulsi Gabbard

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

William Haas

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Henry Hewes

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Amy Klobuchar

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Deval Patrick

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

David Lee Rice

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

Bernie Sanders

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Leonard Steinman

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Velma Steinman.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Tom Steyer,

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Elizabeth Warren

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Robby Wells

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Marianne Williamson

*

*

*

X

X

X

*

X

*

*

*

*

X

Andrew Yang

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

*

X

X

X

X

REPUBLICAN

Rocky De La Fuente

X

*

X

*

*

X

X

*

*

X

*

X

*

Bob Ely

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

X

*

Zoltan Istvan

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Matthew J. Matern

*

*

X

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

X

*

Darius La’Ron Mitchell

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

*

*

Donald J. Trump

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Joe Walsh

*

*

*

*

*

X

*

X

*

*

*

*

*

Bill Weld

*

*

X

*

X

X

X

X

*

X

*

X

*

LIBERTARAN

Max Abramson

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Ken Armstrong

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Dan Behrman

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Jacob Hornberger

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

X

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Jo Jorgensen

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Adam Kokesh

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Steven A. Richey

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

*

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Sam Robb

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Kim Ruff

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Vermin Supreme

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Arvin Vohra

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

GREEN

Sedinam K.C. Curry

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Howard Hawkins

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

X

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Dario Hunter

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

X

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Kent Mesplay

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

*

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

David Rolde

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

*

– –

X

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

CONSTITUTION

Don Blankenship

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

Don Grundmann

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

X

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

* means the candidate did not get on the ballot for that entry.
— means the state government did not hold a presidential primary for that party.

On January 5, former Rhode Island Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee filed a form with the Federal Election Commission, showing that he is seeking the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. He made a formal announcement on January 8. When he was in the U.S. Senate in 2003, he was the only Republican Senator to vote against going to war with Iraq. When he was elected Governor, in 2010, it was as an independent. He was only the second person in Rhode Island history, since the Democratic and Republican Parties have been the two major parties, to have won a statewide race even though he wasn’t a nominee of either of those parties.

David Zuckerman, a leader of the Vermont Progressive Party, was elected Lieutenant Governor in 2016 and re-elected in 2018. In those elections, he was listed on the ballot as "Progressive, Democrat", which tells the voters that he was a Progressive, with the nomination of his own party and also the Democratic Party. In 2020 he will try to be elected Governor. The incumbent Governor, a Republican, is running for re-election.

On January 4, the Green Party of Austria joined the governing coalition. The Greens will control the Ministries of the Environment, Justice, and Social Affairs. Also Werner Kogler, leader of the party, becomes vice-chancellor. The Greens won 13.9% of the vote in the last election.

The 2020 Constitution Party presidential convention will be in St. Louis, April 29-May 2.

Louisiana has never held a presidential primary for any party other than the Republican and Democratic Parties. The law says only qualified parties with at least 40,000 registered members may have one. This year, for the first time, a third party met that requirement. The Independent Party has 88,109 registered members, so it qualified (it had not existed in prior presidential election years). However, no one entered the party’s presidential primary.

The review of The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties led me to determine the number of third party candidates on the ballot for U.S. House for the last 15 elections. Here are the results. The average for the 1990’s was 290 candidates per year; for the 2000’s decade, 322; and for the 2010’s decade, 236. The last decade has seen far more candidates than in the previous decades. The main reason is the existence of the top-two system in California starting in 2012.

YEAR	CANDIDATES	YEAR	CANDIDATES
1990	123	2006	218
1992	289	2008	261
1994	198	2010	307
1996	488	2012	240
1998	352	2014	215
2000	522	2016	213
2002	342	2018	204
2004	269	2020	??