Maine requires a group that wishes to become a qualified party to obtain 5,000 registered members. This requirement was created in 2013, and replaced the old, very difficult 5% petition that had been in the law starting in 1976. The Maine Libertarian Party has been carrying on a voter registration drive for the last six months, and now has over 5,000 registrations, although they have not all yet been submitted to election officials. The drive is continuing with a goal of 6,000, for safety.

The last time the Libertarian Party was a qualified party in Maine was 1991-1992. Currently the Green Party is ballot-qualified in Maine. The Reform Party was also a ballot-qualified party in Maine in the 1990’s, but before that Maine hadn’t had any ballot-qualified parties other than the Republican and Democratic Parties since the 1910’s decade.

This Politico article quotes several experts on polls, who agree that presidential primary debate sponsors are depending on polls far too much when they decide which candidates to invite.

North Dakota is the only state without voter registration. According to this op-ed in the Fargo Forum, the city’s daily newspaper, an interim legislative committee is studying whether to set up a system of voter registration. The author seems to favor the idea.