The Hill, which covers Congress in depth, has this op-ed by Tom Squitieri, “Independent and third-party politicians could ease gridlock.”
Reply
Now that all states have reported their official vote totals, it is possible to calculate the vote for each nationally-organized party’s vote for the office at the top of the ballot for November 2014. Top-of-ballot office is defined to mean Governor. If a state didn’t have a gubernatorial election, it is U.S. Senate. For the five states that had neither office up, it is the office actually at the top of the ballot: U.S. House in North Dakota and Washington, Attorney General for Utah, Secretary of State for Indiana, Auditor for Missouri. The calculation also includes the Mayoral vote for Washington, D.C.
Republican: 40,936,511, down 5.9% from the party’s 2010 total of 43,507,666.
Democratic: 36,888,617, down 10.1% from the party’s 2010 total of 41,043,721.
Libertarian: 1,471,172, up 44.9% from the party’s 2010 total of 1,015,009.
Green: 416,383, down 18.1% from the party’s 2010 total of 508,041.
The 2014 Libertarian total is the second highest number of votes ever for a minor party, for a midterm year top-of-the-ballot races. The highest was the 1914 Progressive Party’s total of 1,489,151. The third highest is now the Reform Party’s 1998 total, which was 1,407,005.
The chief reason the Green total declined between 2010 and 2014 is that in 2010, the Green Party was on the ballot for Governor of California, and it polled 129,231 votes. In 2014 the California top-two system kept all minor party candidates off the ballot for Governor.
Maine State Representative Ben Chipman (I-Portland) will introduce a bill in the 2015 session of the legislature, easing the number of signatures needed to get on the primary ballot of a small ballot-qualified party. The bill will probably set the ceiling for primary petitions for statewide and U.S. House office at 1% of the party’s registered membership. In Maine, current law does not permit anyone to sign a primary petition unless the signer is a member of the same party as the candidate. Furthermore, Maine current law does not take into consideration how many members the party has, and requires 2,000 party members to sign for statewide office, and 1,000 for U.S. House.
Massachusetts primary ballot access laws are somewhat similar to Maine’s, and it is hoped that a somewhat similar bill will be introduced in Massachusetts in 2015.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Reed v Town of Gilbert, 13-502, on January 12, 2015. This is not an election law case, but it is a case involving the First Amendment, and all First Amendment decisions have some impact on election law. The issue in this case is a town ordinance that bans many kinds of signs. The ordinance was challenged by a church that wants to post permanent signs letting passersby know where the church holds its services. The church does not own its own permanent worship space.
Here is the brief of the town, defending its ban. Here is the church’s reply brief, filed December 15.
It appears that this is the number of votes received by each party for U.S. House in the November 4, 2014 election:
Republican 39,679,791
Democratic 35,450,701
Libertarian 965,396
Working Families 249,112
Green 246,567
Constitution 61,271
other parties 548,720
independent candidates 676,463
This is based on official election returns from each state. It does not include the District of Columbia vote for Delegate to U.S. House, nor the vote of any U.S. overseas possessions for Delegate.