Pennsylvania currently has closed primaries. On September 13, State Senator Joe Scarnati, the leader of the Republican Party in the Pennsylvania Senate, introduced SB 1234. It would permit independent voters to choose any primary ballot they wish. Here is the text. The bill has nine co-sponsors. It is being introduced very late in the legislative session.
This year, the only candidates who will be listed on the New York ballot for U.S. Senate are incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, and Republican nominee Chele Chiavacci. This is the first time since 1956 that a New York U.S. Senate election has had only two names on the ballot.
The Green Party is ballot-qualified, and would have run someone, but because the primary for congress was in June, the party’s normal processes for recruiting candidates was too late. The Libertarian Party is not ballot-qualified, but it did petition this year for a statewide slate. But it left U.S. Senate off its statewide petition because the petitioning period for U.S. Senate was a different time period than the petitioning period for state office, so in effect the party would have needed two separate statewide petitions.
The other ballot-qualified parties in New York all nominated either Gillibrand or Chiavacci. Gillibrand is the nominee of the Working Families, Independence, and Women’s Equality Party. Chiavacci is the nominee of the Conservative and Reform Parties.
Massachusetts held primaries on September 4. The race in the Democratic primary for U.S. House, 3rd district, will be settled with a recount, because the vote totals for Lori Trahan and Daniel Koh is so close. See this story.
The Independent Party became ballot-qualified in Louisiana in December 2016, but until now, it has not had any candidates for any federal or state office. But in this year’s congressional elections, the party has four U.S. House candidates. They are Frederick Jones in the First district, Belden Batiste in the Second district, Billy Burkette in the Fifth district, and Devin Lance Graham in the Sixth district.
Actual independent candidates in Louisiana have “no party” as a ballot label. But members of the Independent Party have “Independent” as their ballot label. It was not possible for an Independent Party to be qualified in Louisiana until 2014, when the legislature repealed the law that said no party could be called “Independent Party.”
The Independent Party became ballot-qualified by filing an application, paying a fee of $1,000, and showing that at least 1,000 voters were registered into the party.
This year, no Republican nominee exists in five of Florida’s 27 U.S. House districts. This is the highest number of U.S. House races in Florida with no Republican since 2006, when there was no Republican in six districts.
The five districts with no Republican are districts 10, 14, 20, 21, and 24. There are no independent candidates in any of those races either.
There are no minor party nominees for U.S. House in Florida this year, mostly because the filing fee is over $10,000. Florida filing fees are twice as high as the state with the 2nd-highest fees, Georgia.
