The Oregonian, daily newspaper in Portland, has this article by Sal Peralta, a leader of the Independent Party. The second half of this article discusses the party’s plans to create a national coalition of one-state independent parties.
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Governing Magazine has this story, publicizing the scandal that 40% (and sometimes more) of U.S. state legislative elections have only one candidate on the ballot in November. Generally, the fewer contested races in any particular state, the worse the ballot access laws are. States in which over half the legislative races typically have only one candidate on the ballot include most southern states, as well as Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Mexico. Thanks to several people for the link.
On June 17, just hours before the Arizona Green Party was set to file a lawsuit to get its presidential nominee on the November 2016 Arizona ballot, the Secretary of State asked for talks with the party’s attorney. It is likely the state will allow the presidential nominee of the Green Party to be on the ballot, even though the party didn’t submit the names of its presidential elector candidates by June 1.
The same problem happened in 1996 to the Arizona Libertarian Party, and in August 1996 the Libertarian Party won a lawsuit that put its presidential nominee, Harry Browne, on the November ballot. There really is no need for parties in Arizona to submit their presidential elector candidates so early in the year. Independent presidential candidates in Arizona don’t need to file the names of their presdential elector candidates until September.
On June 17, the South Dakota Secretary of State said the Libertarian Party petition has enough valid signatures, so it is back on the ballot. It went off the ballot in November 2014 for failing to poll 2.5% for Governor. The South Dakota laws for members of small qualified parties to get on their own party’s primary ballot are so draconian, the Libertarian Party wasn’t able to run anyone for Governor in 2014, so obviously it went off the ballot.
This is the first Libertarian petition for statewide ballot status to succeed since March 2016, when the Oklahoma petition was found sufficient.
On June 17, a Florida state court trial judge ruled that a particular write-in candidate is a “real” candidate, and therefore his existence as a candidate cannot be ignored. See this story. Florida’s Constitution says that when all the candidates for a particular office, including write-in candidates in the general election, are from the same party, then all voters, and not just members of that party, can vote in the primary for that office.
In this case, and several previous cases over the same issue, proponents of letting all voters vote in the primary for a particular office say that the write-in candidate only filed in order to keep the primary closed, and that the motives of the write-in candidate should be taken into consideration. But the Florida Supreme Court earlier this year, and both federal and state courts in the past, have repeatedly ruled that the motives of the write-in candidate cannot be taken into consideration.
The real problem in Florida is that over half of all partisan offices only have one candidate on the general election ballot. This is because Florida filing fees are so unreasonably high. Yet no one in Florida ever seems to notice or care that Florida’s fees stifle free elections. The fees are 6% of the annual salary, which means over $10,000 for Congress. If the filing fees were far lower, the number of general election races with only one candidate on the ballot would be far fewer.
Another point the media misses is that under the U.S. Supreme Court opinion California Democratic Party v Jones, a party has a freedom of association right to avoid having its nominees chosen by members of other parties, so even if the write-in issue were resolved the other way, the party with the primary could insist that its primary not be opened up to all votes.