On February 5, the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee passed HB 1286 by a vote of 8-4. It lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. It also says that parties with registration of less than 2.5% of the total state registration are free to nominate for all office by convention. Current law says they must nominate by primary if they want to run candidates for Governor, Congress or state legislature. Because it is very difficult for members of small qualified parties to get on their own party’s primary ballot, the freedom for small qualified parties to nominate by convention would be a great help for them.

The Secretary of State backs the bill. Oddly enough, a trial is being held over the South Dakota rules for ballot access for small political parties February 6-7. The case is Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs.

On February 6, Russian election officials announced that eight candidates will appear on next month’s presidential election. They include incumbent Vladimir Putin, who is the only independent candidate running. The other seven are nominees of various political parties.

In the entire history of the United States, there has never been a presidential election in which more than seven candidates were on the ballot in enough states to be elected. As to the period in U.S. history before there were government-printed ballots, there was never an election in which private ballots were circulated in states containing a majority of the electoral college for more than seven candidates.

On February 5, the Indiana Senate defeated SB 328 by a vote of 17-31. It would have lowered the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. It would also have set up a procedure to let an unqualified party petition before it has chosen its nominees.

Although this is a discouraging outcome, this is the first time a ballot access improvement bill in Indiana has made even this headway. Although Indiana ballot access has been severe ever since 1983, only this year did a bill get introduced to reform it. Indiana is one of only four states in which Ralph Nader (who placed third in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008) never managed to get on the ballot. The other three states have since then eased their ballot access laws. Thanks to Craig Marolf for this news.