The Seattle Times has this article about Socialist Alternative Party, and its hopes to greatly increase the number of candidates it runs for both non-partisan office and partisan office.
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It is expected that the New Mexico Constitution Party will file a request for re-hearing on December 27, over whether parties that submit a valid petition are then entitled to just one election, or two elections.
December 27, 2013, is the first day in which 2014 candidates for Congress and state office may begin to start circulating a petition in lieu of filing fee. Statewide candidates need 10,000 signatures; U.S. House and State Senate candidates need 3,000; Assembly candidates need 1,500. No signature is wasted. The petitions need not be completed, and any valid signatures collected reduce the amount of the filing fee.
During 2013, California held special elections in these legislative districts: State Senate 4, 16, 26, 32, and 40; Assembly 45, 52, 54, 80. Out of those special elections in nine districts, only one minor party candidate filed for office, a Peace & Freedom candidate in the 16th State Senate district.
By comparison, during 2009, before the top-two system took effect, there were six minor party candidates even though 2009 only had special elections in five districts. The almost total absence of minor party candidates during 2013 suggests that there will also be a record low number of minor party candidates in 2014. The reason minor party candidates have virtually stopped filing for office are entirely because of the top-two system, which (1) increases the number of signatures needed for petitions in lieu of the filing fee; (2) makes it virtually certain that minor party candidates can’t run in the general election. The harm done to minor parties will increase after 2014, because the commonest method for them to stay on the ballot is to poll 2% for any statewide office in a midterm year, but they won’t be on the ballot to poll the 2%. It is likely that a bill to ease the definition of “party”, to ameliorate the third problem, will soon be introduced. But no legislator has been found yet to lower the number of signatures needed to avoid the filing fee.
On December 26, attorneys for the state of Alabama filed a brief in U.S. District Court, asking that the case Hall v Bennett be dismissed without any ruling on whether it is constitutional for Alabama to impose the same severe petition requirements in special elections that it does in regular elections.
Alabama held a special congressional election on December 17. The only petitioning candidate who submitted signatures, independent James Hall, submitted over 3,000 signatures, but was still denied ballot access because the state required almost 6,000. The basis for Hall’s lawsuit was that in a normal election, an independent candidate has at least two years, and potentially longer, to collect the needed signatures. In the case of the special election, though, the petitioning time was severely curtailed. Hall failed to win injunctive relief, but his lawsuit for declaratory relief is still pending.
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly said that constitutional challenges to ballot access laws are not moot, just because the election is over. The state acknowledges that this is true in regularly-scheduled elections, but argues that each special election is different in its own way, and therefore Hall’s case is moot.
Here is a link to the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters’ web page, showing the number of registered voters in each qualified party as of December 25. There has been no registration tally for California since February 2013, and there won’t be a new one until early next year, so the Los Angeles data is one method to track new trends in California registration. Over 25% of California’s population lives in Los Angeles County.
Here is a link to a past BAN post, showing the Los Angeles County data as of November 20, 2013. Although the differences between November 2013 and December 2013 are miniscule, the changes are that the two major parties, along with the Green Party, have a slightly lower share of the registration. All other ballot-qualified parties have increased, percentagewise. As a percentage, the number of “declines to state” voters has decreased, but the number of members of unqualified parties, combined with the people who simply leave that question blank on the form, has increased.