Utah is the only state in which no one can run in a partisan primary unless that candidate receives substantial support at a party endorsement meeting. An initiative is about to be launched in Utah to change that, so that anyone can gain a place on a primary ballot regardless of what happens at party meetings. Here is an op-ed by Bryan Hyde, supporting the present system.

The op-ed doesn’t address one of the strongest criticisms of the existing system, which is that some voters can’t attend a party meeting because they are temporarily away, or because they must work at the times and dates of these meetings, or because they don’t have transportation to the meetings. The same criticisms are sometimes made in Virginia, which permits any party to nominate entirely by convention instead of by primary. This year, the Virginia Republican Party nominated its statewide nominees by convention instead of by primary.

According to this article in the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State Senator Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) wants his ballot access restrictions to pass before the end of 2013, because he wants them in place for the 2014 election. His bill, SB 193, would require 55,809 valid signatures by the end of June 2014, for any party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties to be on the 2014 ballot. His bill then also requires separate petitions for each of that party’s nominees.

Seitz is also the author of the bill that already passed earlier this year, which would make it illegal for such parties to use out-of-state circulators. A lawsuit against that law is pending in U.S. District Court.

The Columbus Dispatch does not mention that courts have sometimes ruled that it violates due process for a state to increase the number of signatures in the middle of the petitioning period. For example, in 1999, West Virginia doubled the petition requirement from 1% to 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, but a U.S. District Court in 2000 ruled that the new increase could not be implemented for the 2000 election. That case was Nader 2000 Primary Committee v Hechler, 112 F.Supp.2d 575.

New Jersey has a very old election law which could deprive the Republican Party of its own party column in the October 16, 2013 special U.S. Senate election. Section 19:15-1 says “No political party which fails to poll at any primary election for a general election at least 10% of the votes cast in the State for members of the General Assembly at the next preceding general election shall be entitled to have a party column on the official ballot at the general election for which the primary election has been held.”

In other words, even if a party is ballot-qualified and meets the state’s definition of “party”, it still isn’t automatically qualified for its own party column on the general election, if its primary turnout is quite low.

At the primary election for U.S. Senate election on August 13, 2013, the number of votes cast in the Republican Party primary was only 130,340 votes, which is far less than 10% of the vote cast for General Assembly at the 2011 election. Ten percent of the November 2011 vote is 259,775.

One of the independent candidates in the U.S. Senate election, Eugene LaVergne, filed a lawsuit on September 13, asking that the law be enforced and that the October 16, 2013 general election ballots place the Republican nominee, Steve Lonegan, in the same column in which all the independent candidates are listed. Normal New Jersey ballots in almost all counties have party columns, one headed “Democratic”, one headed “Republican” and one headed “By Petition.” The definition of “political party” in New Jersey is so stringent, no parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties have been ballot-qualified since before 1920. The case is LaVergne v Lonegan, Mercer County L-1933-13.

However, the lawsuit will probably run up against the problem that the law defines “general election” to be “the annual election to be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.” Therefore, the special election for U.S. Senate would seem not to be a “general election.” The lawsuit will be heard on Friday, October 4, at 2 p.m. in Trenton.