On March 6, the Oklahoma Libertarian Party filed the notice of intent to try to qualify for the 2016 ballot. Oklahoma election law requires newly-qualifying parties to notify the state when they start. The petition is due March 1, 2016. Oklahoma requires groups to finish the petition within one year, but the group sets its own one-year petitioning period.
No party has successfully petitioned in Oklahoma since 2000, when the Libertarian and Reform Parties qualified.
The Oklahoma ballot access bill that lowers the petition for newly-qualifying parties from 5% of the last vote cast, to 1%, now has a Senate co-sponsor. He is Senator Marty Quinn (R-Claremore). Now that the bill has a Senate sponsor, it is likely to receive a vote in the House in the coming week. It has already passed the House Committee. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
The Georgia Green Party has never been on the ballot for statewide office. The law requires 51,912 valid signatures for 2016, and the petition can circulate from April 2015 to July 2016. The party is thinking about working on the petition.
One advantage of the party starting to circulate this petition is that it will obtain evidence about the difficulty of petitioning in Georgia. Shopping centers in Georgia routinely do not permit petitioning on their property. Also, because Georgia doesn’t have the initiative process, and because primary candidates don’t petition to get on the primary ballot, very few Georgia voters ever encounter anyone asking for their signature on a ballot access petition of any type. The Green Party’s experience will enable it to supply evidence in the pending ballot access lawsuit, Green Party of Georgia v Secretary of State, now in U.S. District Court. The judge who has jurisdiction over the case has not done anything with it in the last eight months, but eventually there will be a trial. The judge had originally dismissed the case without a trial, but last year the Eleventh Circuit reversed that and said the party is entitled to a trial. The Constitution Party is a co-plaintiff.
Maine Representative Ben Chipman (I-Portland) will present his ballot access bill to the Joint Committee on State and Local Government on Monday, March 9, at 10 a.m. The bill, HB 507, makes it easier for a member of a small ballot-qualified party to get on his or her party’s primary ballot. Current law requires 2,000 signatures of party members for statewide office, and 1,000 for U.S. House. This is a problem when a party with its own primary doesn’t have lots of registered voters who can sign such petitions.
The bill, as introduced, altered the requirement by setting a ceiling of 1% of the party’s registered members. But that idea has been removed from the bill. The amended bill keeps the same petition requirements, but says if the party is free to invite independent voters to vote in its primary and to sign nomination petitions for candidates from that party. Maine law already permits a party to invite independents to vote in its primary, so the bill, if enacted, would also let independents sign primary petitions. Thus a member of a small ballot-qualified party would still need 2,000 signatures to run for Governor or U.S. Senator, but at least could get signatures from registered independents. Maine’s independent voters comprise 37% of the state total.
On March 6, the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee passed SB 69 by a vote of 10-3. It makes ballot access worse for newly-qualifying parties, for their members seeking a place on a primary ballot, and for independent candidates. The three “no” votes were cast by two Democrats and a Republican. The bill has already passed the Senate, and now goes to the House floor. Chances are, if the bill is enacted, there will be lawsuits alleging parts of it are unconstitutional.
