Truthout has this article by Geoff Gilbert, saying the Bernie Sanders campaign has been so successful at raising money, the possibility exists that the Sanders campaign, or people who have been supporting the Sanders campaign, could realistically build a new major political party. The article does not express any opinion about whether this new party should attempt to have a presidential candidate in the November 2016 election, or whether it is only intended for future elections.
According to this story, some of the New York voters whose registration was changed without their knowledge or consent, so that they can now not vote in the April 19 presidential primary, are about to file a lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn. The story says 200 people have come forward, saying their registration was changed.
Here is an Arizona news story about the Libertarian Party’s new ballot access lawsuit, filed April 12. The story quotes several Republican legislators defending the 2015 law change that made it very difficult for Libertarians to get on the Libertarian primary ballot. They say the old law, which only required a few hundred signatures of Libertarian Party members for a candidate to get on a Libertarian primary ballot, was too easy because all candidates need to show a significant level of voter support.
The problem with that argument is that the state has already conceded the Libertarian Party itself has a modicum of support (because it constantly remains ballot-qualified, because its registration is always above two-thirds of 1% of the state total). Therefore, anyone who wins the Libertarian primary does have a modicum of support, because the party backs that person and the party has already shown it has support.
Most states don’t require any signatures for a candidate to get on a partisan primary ballot. Instead they use filing fees.
Furthermore, the purpose of petitions (whether for a general election ballot or a primary ballot) is to keep the ballot from being too crowded. But the old law already kept the Libertarian primary ballot from being crowded; it was very rare for more than one Libertarian to qualify for any particular office. So already the Libertarian primary ballot was not crowded, and there was no legitimate reason for the legislature to increase the burden.
On April 16, the Constitution Party nominated Darrell Castle for President. Thanks to Charles Deemer for this information. The vice-presidential nominee is Scott Bradley. In 2010, Bradley was the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate from Utah, and he polled 5.67%, the second-best showing ever for the Constitution Party for U.S. Senate in a race with both major parties also running.
In November 2016, the voters of Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, will vote on whether to use proportional representation in future elections for the provincial legislative body. See this story.
