State legislators in North Dakota and Maine have started the process of introducing ballot access improvement bills. In North Dakota, Rep. Corey Mock (D-Grand Forks) has asked the bill-drafting staff to prepare a bill that would eliminate the unique North Dakota requirement that a party must attract a certain number of voters into its primary, in order to nominate. North Dakota has open primaries. All parties must nominate by primary. Primary candidates for the legislature must receive, typically, 130 votes in their own party’s primary in order to be nominated. That may sound like a small number, but there are often only about 2,500 voters in a single legislative district who vote in primaries. It is unrealistic to expect many voters to choose the primary ballot of a minor party. The requirement has prevented any minor party candidates for the legislature from appearing on the November ballot ever since 1976.

In Maine, Rep. Ben Chipman (I-Portland) has submitted a proposal to the bill-drafting staff to ease the number of signatures needed for candidates to get on the primary ballot of a small ballot-qualified party. Current Maine law does not permit anyone but a party member to sign a petition to put a candidate on a partisan primary ballot. Furthermore, Maine law doesn’t take into account the fact that the number of registered voters in various parties differs widely. The law requires 2,000 signatures for statewide candidates and 1,000 for U.S. House. The existing law has prevented all ballot-qualified minor parties from having any congressional candidates whatsoever, for approximately 90 years. The Reform Party was qualified 1996 through 2000 and had no candidates for any federal or state office in its primary the entire period, except for one legislative candidate in 1998. The Green Party manages to place candidates on its primary ballot for the legislature, but has never had any members qualify for the primary ballot who were running for Congress, and only twice managed to place a gubernatorial candidate on its own primary ballot, in 2002 and 2006. The Chipman bill would set a ceiling on the number of signatures needed to get on the primary ballot, of 1% of that party’s registered members.