On June 2, the California Assembly passed AB 446. The vote was 70-4. The four “no” votes were cast by Republicans Megan Dahle, Laurie Davies, Randy Voepel, and Marie Waldron. The bill slightly eases ballot access for new and previously unqualified parties. It lowers the petition for party status from 10% of the last gubernatorial vote to 3%. While this is a dramatic improvement, it won’t have much practical effect because almost all groups that desire to become qualified used the alternate registration test anyway. The alternate registration test requires the group to have membership of .33% of the number of registered voters.

The bill also frees up the ability of new parties to use a party name that had been previously used by a group wanting to get on the ballot. For example, a party called the Reform Party could in theory now qualify for the California ballot. Under previous rulings of the Secretary of State, a group could not use the name “Reform Party” unless the same person who had been chair of the last Reform Party was part of the new filing.