Haroon Riaz has written “Pitfalls of the Two-Party System”, concerning the United States, for The Nation blog. Riaz is a Pakistani banker turned writer who blogs for The Nation.
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Mark E. Andersen has this story on Daily Kos, about parties that he believes will have a presidential nominee in 2016, or which already have one.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Reagan will hold oral arguments in Tripp v Smart on October 5, 2015, at 9 a.m. This is a Green Party case against several Illinois ballot access laws, including the requirement that each petition sheet be notarized. This case is in the southern district and will be argued in East St. Louis.
Two other Illinois constitutional ballot access cases are pending. The Libertarian Party’s lawsuit against the requirement that newly-qualifying parties must run a full slate was filed in 2012, and has never had a ruling on declaratory relief. It is assigned to a new U.S. District Court Judge who has six times promised a ruling by a certain date, but has never actually issued a ruling.
Also, the Green Party has another case, in Chicago, Lopez v Smart. It challenges the full slate law also. It has a status conference on September 8 before U.S. District Court Judge John Robert Blakey.
TIME Magazine’s August 24, 2015 issue has a story, “The Knives Come Out for Donald Trump, but he’s not going anywhere.” It says, “Mounting an independent campaign would require Trump to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to get on ballots in 50 states, which would mean an investment of at least double the more than $10 million Trump has earmarked for his candidacy.” Thanks to Oliver Hall for this news.
This interesting Canada news story explains how political parties become registered with the government. The procedure is quite easy, and there are several dozen parties. Candidates for House of Commons get on the ballot by collecting 100 signatures and paying a filing fee of $1,000, part of which is refunded if they follow campaign finance laws and the remainder of which is refunded if the candidate polls a certain share of the vote.
Party names are printed on the ballot only for parties that are recognized. Thanks to Nathan Hetzel for the link.