Colorado legislative leaders are about to introduce a bill for a Colorado presidential primary. Currently, there is no Colorado presidential primary; the major parties use caucuses to choose delegates to the national conventions. According to this story, the bill will provide that independent voters will be free to choose a presidential primary ballot.
Patty Culhane, White House correspondent for Al Jazeera, has this story about the recent Constitution Party national convention. Thanks to Jack Dean for the link.
The Wall Street Journal has this article by Karl Rove, which is on the subject of whether Donald Trump could get on ballots as an independent if he waited until the Republican convention to begin.
The article has many factual errors. It says that Colorado requires 5,000 signatures by June 6. Actually Colorado requires no signatures, merely payment of $1,000 and a list of presidential elector candidates by August 10.
It says that Vermont requires 1,000 signatures by June 16, but actually the signatures are due August 1.
It says Rhode Island requires 1,000 signatures by June 29, but only a declaration of candidacy is due on June 29, and the signatures are not due until September 9.
It says that Florida requires signatures by July 15. Although that is true for an independent presidential candidate, Trump could easily create his own party in Florida, or use one of the many ballot-qualified minor parties that already exist, which would leave him until September 1 to need to act.
It mentions that South Carolina requires an independent petition by July 15, which is true, but doesn’t say that South Carolina, like Florida, already has several ballot-qualified parties that would probably nominate him with no need for a petition.
On April 19, Manitoba held a legislative election. See the wikipedia page about that election here. Three parties won seats: Progressive Conservative 40, New Democratic 14, Liberal 3. Three other parties participated but did not win any seats.
On April 20, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party filed this reply brief in its ballot access case, Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner. The issue is the relatively new law that makes it illegal to circulate the party petition in an odd year. The U.S. District Court had upheld the law; the case is now in the First Circuit.
