The Arizona Green Party has begun petitioning to get back on the ballot for the 2020 election.  It needs 31,685 signatures by February 28, 2020.  This is the highest number of signatures that Arizona has ever required for new parties; the number is high because turnout was so strong in November 2018.  If the party succeeds, this will be the most difficult petition requirement that the Green Party will have overcome since 2010, when it got on in Texas.

Back in 1968, when the Arizona law was different, it was possible to put a new party on the ballot in Arizona with just 358 valid signatures.

Carl Pope, former head of the Sierra Club, has this opinion piece at Salon. He says that anyone who runs outside the two major parties for president “is an enemy of democracy.” The chance that Howard Schultz might run for president motivated this story.  Pope does not even mention the idea of Ranked Choice Voting.  UPDATE:  the title of the piece has been changed, so that instead of proclaiming that Schultz is an enemy of democracy, it asks if he is, and the title ends with a question mark.

The only reason Maine became the first state to use Ranked Choice Voting for federal office is because Maine had two gubernatorial elections in a row in which an independent candidate for Governor was perceived as a “spoiler.” Democrats hold both houses of the legislature and the Governorship in 14 states. If Democrats really believe that a strong independent candidate for President will be a “spoiler”, then rationally they should pass bills for Ranked Choice Voting. And for prominent voices like Pope to write an entire essay without even mentioning this idea is incomprehensible.

On February 13, the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee declined to pass HB 728, which would have provided for ranked choice voting for all federal and state office. But the committee did not defeat the bill either. It will study the issue some more. However, the delay means that ranked choice voting can’t be in place in time for the February 2020 presidential primaries. Here is a copy of the bill.

Tiani X. Coleman of New Hampshire has this interesting description of the hearing, posted in Independent Voting Network.