Kansas will probably hold a special election soon for U.S. House, to replace Congressman Mike Pompeo, who will resign from Congress to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. This Wichita Eagle story says that Kansas has no procedure for qualified minor parties to participate in special elections. It also says independent candidates must collect approximately 17,000 signatures in 25 days.

The story seems to be in error. Kansas requires exactly 5,000 signatures for independent candidates for U.S. House, not 17,000. Also Kansas in in the Tenth Circuit, and the Tenth Circuit said in 1984 in Blomquist v Thomsen that when the normal petitioning period is shorter than usual, states must lower the required number of signatures. According to the news story, independent candidate Miranda Allen (who ran in this month’s regular election for this seat) would like to run again, but she apparently doesn’t realize that case law protects her.

Jill Stein’s web page here announces a fund-raising drive to pay for a presidential vote recount in Wisconsin, and maybe Michigan and Pennsylvania also. She is entitled to a recount because she was on the ballot in those states. However, it is expensive. She does not want a recount because she is dissatisfied with her own vote count. She is asking for a recount to learn what effect such a recount would have on the Democratic and Republican vote totals.

Washington state defines a qualified party as one that got 5% for President. On election night, the Libertarian Party appeared to be receiving 4.8% of the presidential vote in Washington. But, only two-thirds of the votes had been counted, because Washington state votes by mail, and none of the ballots that arrived on election day had been processed yet. It takes time to process mail ballots, because the signature on the outer envelope must be checked against the signatures on the voter registration form.

As of the morning of November 23, Gary Johnson has 75 votes in excess of 5%. But, there are many more ballots to be counted, so it is difficult to predict whether he will hit 5%. Here are the results, which change daily. As of now, 3,190,778 votes have been counted for President. 5% of that number is 159,539. Johnson has 159,614. Thanks to Carla Howell for this news.

Before 2008, the Washington vote test was 5% for any statewide race, which was much easier to attain. The Libertarian Party polled over 5% for two statewide offices in 2000, so was last a qualified party in Washington for the period 2000-2004. When the top-two law went into effect, parties no longer had nominees for any office other than president, so the vote test became limited to just president.

Having qualified status would have no effect on Washington state elections for Congress and state office, but it would eliminate the need for the Libertarian Party to petition for president in 2020. If the Libertarian Party does get 5% for president in 2016, it would then be a qualified party in every state in the western half of the country.