Reportedly, national leaders of Americans Elect are planning to ask state officials to de-certify the party, in all the states in which the party is now ballot-qualified. However, there is no legal precedent that gives state or national party leaders the legal ability to take that step.

In 1986, Adlai E. Stevenson III formed the Illinois Solidarity Party, got it on the ballot, and ran as its nominee for Governor of Illinois. He polled 40%, far more than the amount needed to give the party qualified status for the next four years. He had set out at the beginning of the year to be the Democratic Party nominee for Governor, but even though he won the party’s nomination at the March primary, he resigned from the ticket and created the Illinois Solidarity Party because a supporter of Lyndon LaRouche had won the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor. If Stevenson had remained the Democratic nominee, he would have been forced to run as part of a joint ticket with the LaRouche supporter in November.

After the 1986 election was over, Stevenson and other Democrats who had created the party did not desire to see the Illinois Solidarity Party on the ballot in Illinois in 1988 or 1990. But, they did not believe they had the legal authority to cause the party to lose its qualified status. Instead, Democrats in the 1987 session of the legislature passed SB 10, giving the party officers the ability to end the legal existence of the party. Governor James Thompson, a Republican, vetoed the bill. The New Solidarity Party then participated in the 1988 and 1990 elections as a ballot-qualified party. In those elections, it fell under the control of New Alliance Party activists, and its 1988 presidential nominee was Lenora Fulani.

States in which Americans Elect is currently ballot-qualified are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Both the Peace & Freedom Party, and the American Independent Party, first qualified for the California ballot in January 1968. Both parties will choose presidential nominees in August. Peace & Freedom will hold its convention in Los Angeles August 4-5, and American Independent will hold its convention in Sacramento August 11. At this point, no one knows which candidate will receive either party’s nomination.

Recently, Reverend Wiley Drake of Orange County, California, said that he will seek the AIP nomination. He was the party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2008.

On July 10, Roseanne Barr sent an e-mail to the state chair of PFP, saying she is seeking the nomination of PFP. On the evening of July 11, Barr was in attendance at the Green Party national convention in Baltimore and participated in a forum there.

On July 10, opponents of the Arizona top-two open primary initiative, or jungle primary, held a press conference. Bill Montgomery, the County Attorney for Maricopa County, Arizona, will lead the opposition. That opposition will be a campaign to defeat the measure at the ballot box and also in court. Opponents believe the initiative violates the state Constitutional provisions that require initiatives to be on a single subject, and also the provision that all initiatives must include a funding source in case the effect of the initiative is to increase government spending. See this story. The opposition group uses the name “Save Our Vote Committee.”

The initiative abolishes elections for party office. It does not seem to follow logically that a state that enacts a top-two system must also abolish elections for party office. All three of the other states with a top-two system, California, Washington, and Louisiana, continue to elect party officers.

The Arizona press seems to have no consensus about the name of the type of primary being proposed by the initiative. The article linked to calls it a “non-partisan primary”, although other Arizona articles call it an “open primary.” For over a century, “open primary” has been defined as a system in which each party has its own primaries but any voter can choose any party’s primary ballot, so “open primary” is not a good name for a system in which parties don’t have nominees. On the other hand “non-partisan primary” isn’t a good term either, because traditionally, “non-partisan” means an election with no party labels on the ballot. Arizona has true non-partisan elections for city office everywhere except in Tucson.

The Washington state press always uses the term “top-two primary”, and the California press alternates between calling it a “top-two primary” and an “open primary.” The Louisiana press calls the Louisiana system a “jungle primary.”