Five Minor Parties in Utah Meet the Vote Test for Qualified Status

Utah elects its statewide state offices in presidential years. A party remains on the ballot if it polls 2% for any statewide office, federal or state. All of these minor parties polled enough votes for at least one office to keep qualified status: Libertarian, Constitution, Independent American, United Utah, and Forward.

The only party that didn’t keep its qualified status is the Green Party, which didn’t run for any statewide offices except President.

Utah is the only state in which the Forward Party is now a qualified party.

Libertarian Party is Only Minor Party in Pennsylvania to Meet State’s Definition of a “Political Party”

Pennsylvania law does not allow a party to be on the ballot automatically for all partisan offices unless it has voter registration of 15% of the statewide total. Obviously only the Democratic and Republican Parties meet this definition.

However, Pennsylvania allows groups to be on the ballot automatically in special elections if they meet the state’s definition of a “political party”, which is a group that had a statewide nominee whose vote total equals 2% of the highest winning statewide candidate’s vote. Also, such groups are listed as a choice on the voter registration form.

The Libertarian Party polled enough votes for each of the three statewide state offices to meet the definition. Its best showing was Auditor, with 119,375 votes. None of the other groups on the ballot met the vote test, although the Green Party is fairly close for Attorney General. The test requires 68,873 votes, and Richard Weiss, Green for Attorney General, has 64,775.

The Constitution, Forward, and American Solidarity Parties did not come close to meeting the vote test.

Montana Green Party Loses Qualified Status

The Montana Green Party did not poll enough votes to remain on the ballot. The law requires a vote of 5% of the winning candidate for Governor, but any office counts. However, the Green Party only ran for President and U.S. Senator, but not for any of the statewide state offices. Also, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had the ballot label “We the People” but he didn’t get enough votes.

The Libertarian Party retained its qualified status with its nominee for Clerk of the Supreme Court. The party needed to poll 16,319 votes for one of the statewide offices, and Roger Roots polled 21,594 for Clerk.

Missouri Green Party Lacks 152 Votes for Qualified Status, But All Votes Aren’t Counted Yet

The Missouri Green Party needed 2% in any statewide race to keep qualified status. Its best showing is for Lieutenant Governor, where the preliminary results show that it has 1.995%. Using the tentative totals, it needs 57,828 votes for that office and has 57,676.

The Missouri Libertarian Party met the vote test.