Canada is holding a special election on August 18 to fill a vacancy in the House of Commons, in the Battle River-Crowfoot district in Alberta. Canadian ballot access is easy. Candidates for House of Commons need 100 signatures and a filing fee of $1,000. The Longest Ballot Committee, a group that favors proportional representation and/or ranked choice voting, has caused 128 candidates to file for the special election, as a protest against the status quo electoral system.

Here is the list of candidates. The filing deadline is July 28 so the list may grow between now and then.

Fortunately for voters, the list of candidates is in alphabetical order. When California held its special gubernatorial election in 2003, there were 135 candidates and they were not in alphabetical order.

The protest idea may cause the Canadian ballot access law to become more difficult. See this story, which says that Conservative Party leader wants to increase the petition from 100 signatures to 1,000 signatures, and also to provide that a voter may sign for only one candidate.

In Nebraska, a party that has at least 10,000 registered members enjoys qualified status, regardless of whether it polls enough votes to stay on. The vote test is 5% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections.

The Legal Marijuana Now Party has so many registrants as of the July 1 tally, it is virtually certain to reach 10,000 in the next few months. It has 9,671. Every month it grows. In January 2022 it had 1,452; in January 2023 it had 4,215; in January 2024 it had 5,897; and in January 2025 it had 9,057.

BAD ACCESS BILLS PASS IN IOWA AND VERMONT, BUT NOT IN DELAWARE OR NEW HAMPSHIRE

During June, restrictive ballot access laws passed in Iowa and Vermont, but were defeated in Delaware and New Hampshire.

Delaware:  HB 65 would have moved the deadline for a new party to get on the ballot from August to March.  The purpose of the bill was to move the non-presidential primary from September to April, and because the deadline for a new party is tied to the primary date, the bill automatically makes the deadline far more restrictive.

The bill had passed the House overwhelmingly in April and had passed the Senate Elections & Governmental Affairs Committee in May.  But it was never brought up on the Senate floor, and the legislature has just adjourned.

There is no need for Delaware to link the deadline to the date of the primary.  Small and new parties nominate by convention, not primary, so it is irrational to link the deadline to the primary date.

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