Professor Elaine Karmarck has this article for the Brookings Institution, on whether it is too late for an independent presidential candidate to emerge at the time of the national Republican convention. The article seems wholly accurate, yet incomplete. It does not discuss the idea that a group interested in keeping its options open could be petitioning now to qualify a new political party. In 39 states, the petition to qualify a new party need not indicate who the presidential nominee is, so that work could be going on now even before the backers have decided whether to run a candidate, or who that candidate would be.

On March 23, the Oklahoma House Elections & Ethics Committee unanimously passed SB 896. It changes the vote test for a party to remain on the ballot from 10% of the vote for the office at the top of the ticket, to 2.5%. The bill was amended to take effect on November 1, 2016, instead of January 1, 2017, so assuming it passes the House soon, it will need to go back to the Senate.

The committee also passed SB 1016, to remove the names of any political parties from the voter registration form, and SB 1108, to remove the names of presidential elector candidates from the November ballot. The purpose of SB 1016 is to eliminate the need to reprint all the forms every time a new party qualifies, or every time one ceases to be qualified. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.

Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have withdrawn their names from the New York April 19 Republican presidential primary ballot. Normally, this season, candidates who cease cmpaigning don’t bother to withdraw their names from ballots. The only names on the New York Republican ballot will be Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump.

The next presidential primary is Wisconsin’s April 5 event. The Wisconsin Republican ballot has twelve presidential candidates listed, most of whom have stopped campaigning. Wisconsin required candidates who didn’t wish to be on the ballot to withdraw in mid-January, so it is far too late for any of them to remove their names now.