California elects an Insurance Commissioner in a partisan election. Only six candidates are on the June ballot: three Democrats, one Republican, one Peace & Freedom Party member, and one independent candidate. UPDATE: the Republican, Peter Kuo, failed to qualify, so there are only five candidates.

The Peace & Freedom Party member is Nathalie Hrizi. The three Democrats are Asif Mahmood, State Senator Ricardo Lara, and Paul Song. The independent is Steve Poizner, who held the position 2006-2010, when he was a Republican.

It is very likely that Hrizi will poll over 2% of the June vote. If she does, that will keep the Peace & Freedom Party on the ballot for four years, even if the party’s registration dips below .33% of the state total. At the last registration tally, as of January 2018, PFP was .40%.

According to news stories, $21,000,000 was spent to boost the Democratic and Republican nominees for Pennsylvania’s special election earlier this week, which amounts to almost $100 per vote cast.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has been Secretary of State for 42 years. Throughout that long tenure, he has acted to erect ballot access barriers and do what he could to keep minor parties off the ballot. He has enormous influence over the New Hampshire legislature. There have been dozens of bills over the past few decades to improve New Hampshire ballot access, and he always testifies against such bills, or else sends his chief deputy to testify against them. And those bills are always defeated.

Since he has been Secretary of State, the independent petition requirement for statewide office has risen from 1,000 to 3,000. The number of votes for a party to remain on the ballot has increased from 3% to 4%. The time for collecting signatures on the new party petition has shrunk from unlimited time, to seven months. Gardner influenced the legislature to pass a bill that forced minor party and independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy several months before their petitions were due, thus cutting the ability of a new party to have a free choice of nominees after submitting the petition.

Under his administration, New Hampshire remains one of the very few states to forcibly deprive a party of all its registered members when it goes off the ballot. The only other states that do that are Florida, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.

According to this NPR story, Colin Van Ostern is launching a campaign to replace Gardner. In New Hampshire and Maine, but no other states, the legislature chooses the Secretary of State, so Van Ostern must campaign for the Secretary of State job by influencing legislators. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.