The Washington Secretary of State has completed the official canvass and has determined that Gary Johnson got 5.01% of the total vote. This means the Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified for the next four years. See this story.

Here is a link to the official election returns for president in Washington.

The Libertarian Party was also a ballot-qualified party in Washington for the period November 2000 through November 2004. It earned that by polling over 5% for Lieutenant Governor and Auditor in the 2000 election. Because Washington started using a top-two system in 2008, qualified status became much more difficult starting that year. Parties no longer have nominees in Washington for anything except president, so the vote test at that point became much more difficult.

The only other party that has had qualified status in Washington state in the last 80 years was the Reform Party, which had it November 1996 through November 1998. The last third party before that to have qualified party status was the Farmer-Labor Party during the 1920’s, which elected several legislators. The Washington state vote test was 10%, not 5%, before 1977. Thanks to Chris Powell for this news.

The only states with no ballot-qualified parties, other than the Republican and Democratic Parties, are Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. However, in Georgia, the only ballot-qualified third party, the Libertarian Party, is only on the ballot for statewide office, not district or county office.

Earlier this year, Mark Warren Moody, a New York voter, sued the State Board of Elections over the state’s unique law that prevents New York voters from voting in a presidential primary unless they had registered with that party six months and ten days before the April presidential primary. The case is pending in state trial court in Manhattan. Moody v New York State Board of Elections, 100678/2016.

The case is intensely fact-based, and points out that back in October 2015, the country had no idea that Bernie Sanders would be a strong contender for the Democratic nomination, and no idea that Donald Trump would be a strong contender for the Republican nomination.

The law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 in Rosario v Rockefeller. By a 5-4 vote, the majority assumed (in the absence of evidence) that the law is needed to prevent insincere voters who do not support a particular party from “raiding” that party’s primary. Moody criticizes the Rosario decision, but he bases his case on the state constitution. Moody failed to get injunctive relief earlier this year, but the constitutional issue is not settled yet. Here is his latest brief, filed October 26, 2016. Thanks to Cathy Stewart and Elizabeth Sandor for the brief.

UPDATE: Moody wants two of Donald Trump’s adult children to testify. News reports in the spring of 2016 said that they had not been registered Republicans in time to vote for their father. Moody hopes to emphasize that if even people that closely involved in electoral politics lost their presidential primary vote, that shows the existence of a big problem. See this story.

Vox has this fascinating story about a poll conducted November 15-16 for President, using instant runoff voting, condorcet voting, approval voting, and range voting. This article is valuable not only for the presidential results, but for its clear explanation of each type of voting system. Thanks to Alex Hammer for the link.