Since 1943, Georgia has required minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House to submit a petition of 5% of the number of registered voters to get on the ballot for U.S. House. This is so difficult, no independent has done it since 1964, and no minor party candidate has ever done it. The Libertarian Party currently has a lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court against this requirement. Georgia allows the Libertarian Party to be on the November ballot automatically for all statewide offices (state and U.S. Senate alike), but not U.S. House or legislature.

On April 18, the state answered interrogatories, to explain why it has such draconian ballot access requirements for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House. The state says it has a compelling interest in avoiding the need to hold a run-off general election. Georgia law, since 1964, has provided for run-off general elections for all federal and state office except president. These run-off general elections are in January of the year after the election. Georgia held runoff general elections for U.S. Senate in 1992 and 2008. Both times, the presence of a Libertarian on the ballot for U.S. Senate prevented anyone from getting as much as 50% of the vote in November, for U.S. Senate.

There is an obvious answer to Georgia’s response. The state is free to use ranked choice voting. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harlan mentioned this idea fifty years ago in his concurrence in Williams v Rhodes, 393 US 23 (1968). Williams v Rhodes was an Ohio ballot access case. Ohio defends its Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly by saying that it wants the winner to always receive at least 50%. Harlan wrote in footnote 8 that Ohio is free to use ranked choice voting.

Mexico holds a presidential election on July 1. Five candidates are on the ballot. All five will debate each other on April 22. See this story.

On April 16, the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission issued its final decisions on which proposed state constitutional changes to put on the November 2018 ballot. According to this story, the Commission voted not to change the primary system.

There had been support for a constitutional amendment saying that write-in candidates in the general election should be deemed not to exist, in connection with partisan primaries. Current law says when all the candidates for any particular partisan office are from the same party, then the August primary for that particular office is open to all registered voters, no matter what their partisan affiliation. This has been the law for 20 years.

Current law treats declared write-ins candidates in the general election as though they were not members of any particular party. So, when someone files as a write-in for the general election for a particular office, the primary for that office remains closed, even if all the ballot-listed candidates are from the same party.