In Illinois, if the nominee of an unqualified party polls at least 5%, the party becomes ballot-qualified for that office for the next election (except the rule doesn’t work in years which end in zero, such as 2010). This year, the Green Party polled over 5% in two Illinois districts, so the party is automatically on the ballot in 2014 for those two races. Nancy Wade polled 5.7% in the 5th district, and Paula Bradshaw polled 5.6% in the 12th district.

Other than these districts in Illinois, the Green Party does not seem to have gained status as a “party” in any state as a result of the 2012 election returns. It lost qualified status in Arkansas, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Utah.

The Libertarian Party lost qualified status in Arkansas, Hawaii, and North Dakota. Arkansas parties lose ballot status every two years if they don’t poll as much as 3% for the office at the top of the ballot (president in presidential years and governor in midterm years). The Libertarian Party lost ballot status in Hawaii because Hawaii has a very strange law that says, once a party has been on the ballot for three elections in a row, then it is on the ballot for the next five elections as well. The Libertarian Party has used up its five “free” elections and will now need to petition in 2014, 2016, and 2018 in order to get another “free” ten years. Or it could conceivably petition in 2014 and then meet the vote test, which is 2% for all the State Senate races, or 4% for all the State House races, of 10% for either U.S. House seat or a statewide office.

Google has compiled the national totals for various presidential candidates who were on the ballot, but they are very faulty. Google figures for Virgil Goode, for example, show less than 10,000, when the preliminary returns from the 26 states in which he was on the ballot yield a total of 108,195 votes. Google calculates 1,139,562 for Gary Johnson as of several hours ago, but of course all these numbers are constantly increasing as more votes are counted. Probably at least 8% of all votes nationwide still haven’t been counted, perhaps more. Google, several hours ago, showed Jill Stein at 396,684. It seems likely that Roseanne Barr (whose google total is 48,797) polled more votes than Rocky Anderson, whose google total several hours ago was 34,521.

Jill Stein received 1.3% of the Maine vote, making Maine the first state that has certainly cast as much as 1% of its presidential vote for the Green Party nominee since 2000, when Ralph Nader polled over 1% in most states. Stein’s next best states are Alaska and Oregon, where final tallies may also show her just over the 1% mark.