Maine Representative Ryan Justin Fecteau (R-Augusta) has introduced LD 1061. It lowers the number of registered members for a new party to attain “qualified party” status from 5,000 to 2,500 registered members. It also says that when a party is about to be removed from the ballot, it has 90 days to seek more registrations before its members are converted to independent voters.
The 5,000 registered voters under a party name in Maine would not be so bad if it were not for the irrational requirement that a party has to have at least 10,000 of its registered voters vote in a general election in order to stay ballot qualified.
They could just make it 5,000 registered voters gets party status, regardless of how many of them vote in a general election. This would be more reasonable than the present law.
I believe its LD 1061 not HB: https://legiscan.com/ME/bill/LD1061/2021
thank you, Brandon. I just now fixed it.
The American Solidarity Party would really like to take advantage of this, especially if RCV is expanded.
Kylat, Maine does have some other goofy requirement once you get party status. I think you have to have a certain number of district or county conventions, or something like that. I think they also require petition signatures to put candidates on a primary ballot. It has been awhile since I looked up the law there, but I recall their being more hoops to jump through once you get recognized as a party.
ASP is toast now that the demonstrable demagogue Patrick Harris is chair.
lol