The Militant, weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, can now be seen on-line for all issues 1946 through the present. See this link. In the near future, the issues from 1928 through 1945 will also be posted.

The Militant is the only printed weekly newspaper published by a U.S. political party. Most parties that still have print publications only publish once per month, or less frequently.

Between 1969 and 1980, the Socialist Workers Party was the most active party in the U.S. challenging restrictive ballot access laws in court. The issues of The Militant for those years are a valuable resource for anyone researching the history of the fight against such ballot access laws. Leaders of the Socialist Workers Party established a separate pressure group called CoDel (Committee for Democratic Election Laws) to gain support for these lawsuits. Such lawsuits won against various laws in Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia.

The Socialist Workers Party has had more election law cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court than any other minor party.

On June 13, the town of Standish, Maine, held an election for its own officers. Peter Starostecki, a registered Green Party member, was elected to the Town Council from area 2. Standish is in Cumberland County, the same county that contains Portland. Thanks to Michael for this news.

Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin launched his candidacy on August 8, 2016. He got on the ballot in eleven states. In those eleven states, he received 510,002 votes, and the total presidential vote in those eleven states was 21,004,501. Therefore, in the states where he was on the ballot, he received 2.43% of the total valid votes cast.

He was not on the ballot in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. If those states had voted for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton would have received a majority of the electoral college votes.

If McMullin had been on the ballot in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and if his support in those states had matched his support in the states in which he was on the ballot, then he would have received, respectively: Michigan 116,623; Pennsylvania 148,916; Wisconsin 71,767. Those totals are far larger than the margin by which Trump defeated Clinton in all three states. The margins between Trump and Clinton were: Michigan 10,704; Pennsylvania 44,292; Wisconsin 22,748.

McMullin’s campaign focused on persuading Republicans to vote for McMullin instead of Trump. It is reasonable to assume that where McMullin was on the ballot, a large majority of the people who voted for him were voters who would otherwise have voted Republican for President. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that if restrictive ballot access laws had not kept McMullin off the ballot in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton would now be President.

An actual example exists for Minnesota. Clinton carried Minnesota by 44,765 votes. McMullin was on in Minnesota and got 53,076 votes there.

McMullin had the capacity to complete petitions in states in which 5,000 signatures were required. He successfully got that many valid signatures in Kentucky and Virginia, both of which require 5,000. Pennsylvania only required 5,000 signatures, and Wisconsin only required 2,000, but McMullin couldn’t qualify in those two states because the deadlines were too early. Pennsylvania’s was August 1 and Wisconsin’s was August 2.

States could have had late August or early September petition deadlines, without harming election administration. In 2016, these six states had September deadlines: Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Rhode Island (the Florida deadline was the minor party deadline, not the independent deadline). These states had deadlines in the last week of August: Idaho, Oregon, Virginia, and Wyoming.