On June 8, the Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee passed SB 495. This is Senator Mike Folmer’s bill to ease ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates. It says that if a party has registration of at least one-twentieth of 1% of the state total, it would be a qualified minor party, and would nominate by convention. The idea is based on Delaware’s law. For independent candidates, the bill lowers the number of signatures from 2% of the winning candidate’s vote in the last election, to exactly 2,000 for statewide office, and lesser numbers for other office.
Thanks for the news, Richard! Any ideas of whether this could/would, if adopted, forestall the courts from just putting the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties on the ballot this fall? (Or whether it’s intended to do so?)
If the bill passes, even if it doesn’t take effect immediately, I am guessing the courts would take note of the new law and put it into effect this year.
But the statistics I can find here:
http://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Pages/default.aspx#.V1h1yFJDZ0w
don’t show figures for specific “other” parties — just Democrat, Republican, no affiliation, and undifferentiated “other”. The state should have the detailed figures; the online registration form:
https://www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us/documents/VoterApplication_English.pdf
shows the typical blank after the “Other” box requiring any rebels to take the extra time to declare their sympathies. But if they have the figures, they’re apparently not posting them.
Are there figures for registrants of the “suing parties” in the court filings, perhaps? If not, then will those parties have to file FOIA requests to find out if they’d qualify under this bill, or how many more registrants they’d need by the October 11 deadline to register for November 8 (or whatever earlier checkpoint/deadline date set in the bill as required for ballot-printing purposes)? If the bill doesn’t pass soon, that could be another problem the courts might have to address.
Yes, the number of registrants in each of the three plaintiff parties is already in evidence filed in court. Many, many states have voter registration statistics that are not on the internet.
Good — that would at least make it easier for the plaintiff parties (and any others) to know where they would stand if the bill becomes law as is. Of course, legislators would know too — and might tinker with the timing and/or the requirements to block some party or parties from qualifying. But we could hope the court would notice that.
As currently written, SB 495 defines the comparison points as
* the total registration figure as of December 31 in the year before the primary; and
* the party’s registration figure 21 days before the primary.
This year, the primary was April 26, so the cutoff date would be — or would have been — April 5. Slightly too late to do a registration drive now under that schedule, of course . . . but the plaintiff parties might not object if they would qualify under that standard. Or the court could decide to put them on the ballot this year, and apply the bill to the next cycle.
For a readily available comparison, the total registration figure available online (updated as of Monday) is 8,301,905; 1/20 of 1% of that would be 4,151.