New Mexico Politics blog has this op-ed by Rick Lass, advocating fairer ballot access laws for minor parties and independent candidates in New Mexico.
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Greg Gerritt, a leader of the New England Green Party, wrote a history of the Green Party for the years 2002-2004, called Green Party Tempest: Weathering the Storm of 2004. It is 70 pages and can now be read electronically at this link. Thanks to Jackie Deveneau for the link.
The Socialist Party is having a national convention in New York city, October 20-22. Here is the web page for the convention, which includes a twitter feed.
The Ninth Circuit expects to hear Soltysik v Padilla, 16-55758, in February 2018. This is the case on whether California is violating the First Amendment and/or the Fourteenth Amendment by letting some candidates have their party membership listed on ballots (for Congress and partisan state office), but not letting certain other candidates have their party membership listed. The plaintiff, Emidio Soltysik, is a registered Socialist, but because the Socialist Party is not a qualified party, Soltysik can only have the ballot label “Party preference: none”.
Alabama holds a special election for U.S. Senate on December 12, 2017. Because the Alabama ballot access laws are so severe, only the Republican and Democratic nominees will be on the ballot. However, the Libertarian Party has nominated a write-in candidate, Ron Bishop, and his candidacy has been mentioned already in the Birmingham and Anniston daily newspapers. See this story, for example.
Alabama permits write-in votes, but won’t tally them.