Two political scientists, Matthew Hindman and Bernard Tamas, have this analysis in Monkey Cage in the Washington Post. They show that there are more minor party and independent candidates for federal office now than there were fifty years ago. They are correct. However, they could have noted the drop-off in the number of such candidates on the November ballot starting in 2012, due to the top-two systems in California and Washington, and they did not. In 2014 over half of U.S. House races had no minor party or independent candidates on the November ballot. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Steven Nelson has this interesting article in U.S. News & World Report on what would happen if a major contender in a presidential general election died in the last few months of a presidential election year.

On July 29, the Pennsylvania minor parties that had won a U.S. District Court order on June 30, 2016, lowering the number of signatures for statewide petitions, filed a notice of appeal to the Third Circuit. The only issue for the appeal is that the U.S. District Court order had invented a county distribution requirement for state office, for minor party and independent candidate statewide petitions. The parties’ brief is due September 26.

County distribution requirements for statewide general election candidates have completely ceased to exist in the United States, so it was odd that the U.S. District Court had included such requirements in his otherwise good court order of June 30. There are twenty court decisions striking down county distribution requirements for statewide petitions of all types. They are based on the principle that, because counties are unequal in population, county distribution requirements give more power to rural areas than urban areas. The Third Circuit case number is 16-3266. The plaintiffs include the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties.