On March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Independent Party v Padilla, 17-1200. This is the case over whether California had the authority to prevent any party from coming into existence if it is named “Independent Party.”
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Michael Drucker has this blog post at The Independent View, describing five bills in the New York legislature that would implement ranked choice voting in New York city primaries. The bills are AB 8613, and these Senate bills: 3309, 4110, 5605, and 5616.
The Arizona requirement for independent candidate petitions is 3% of the number of people who are registered to vote, but who are not registered as members of any qualified party. However, any registered voter may sign for an independent candidate.
The 3% calculation is based on the registration data of March 1 of an election year. The Secretary of State recently released registration data for March 1, so it is now possible to know the exact independent petition requirement. For statewide office it is 36,697 signatures.
The requirement is irrational, because Arizona requires 23,041 signatures for a new party. If the purpose of ballot access petitions is to keep the ballot uncrowded, it makes no sense for Arizona to require almost 60% more signatures for a single statewide independent than for an entire new party. A new party in Arizona could run someone for all the partisan offices in the state, thus making a far greater impact on the general election ballot than a single independent candidate would make.
Rocky De La Fuente is currently suing Arizona over the number of signatures for an independent candidate. The lawsuit has moved slowly. Discovery is underway.
California has 53 U.S. House districts. This year, in nine of them, no Republican filed to be on the June 5 primary ballot.
In 2016, in November, there were nine U.S. House districts in California with no Republican on the ballot. For November 2018, it is not now possible to know how many districts will have no Republican on the ballot. On the one hand, there might be Republicans who file as write-ins in the June primary. Because there is only one person on the primary ballot in the 13th, 19th, and 32nd districts, it is possible a Republican write-in will place second in any of those districts and thus appear on the November ballot.
On the other hand, even in races in which a Republican is on the primary ballot, there are probably a few districts in which no Republican in those districts will place first or second. There are always U.S. House districts in California with two Democrats who place first and second, even though a Republican is running.
Concerening the qualified minor parties in U.S. House races, there are nine Greens, five Libertarians, two members of the American Independent Party, and one member of the Peace & Freedom Party. Independents are running in 19 of the 53 districts.
Several months ago, a U.S. District Court struck down the Arkansas March 1 petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates. However, the Secretary of State still believes that independent candidates in 2018 were required to file a declaration of candidacy by March 1. This interpretation is reducing the number of independent candidates who might otherwise be petitioning now.
No independent candidates for statewide office filed a declaration of candidacy by March 1. However, three independents filed a declaration for U.S. House, and five filed one for legislature.