On November 8, 2011, New Jersey held elections for legislature. In the 24th legislative district, Constitution Party nominee Rose Anne Salanitri polled 10.2% of the total vote cast, even though she had opponents from both major parties. Here is her campaign web page, which says she is a Constitution Party nominee. She is somewhat well-known for having launched a campaign to recall U.S. Senator Robert Menendez. Her ballot label was not “Constitution”, but “Tea Party Proud.”

Generally, minor parties candidates in New Jersey poll rather small percentages of the vote, because in almost all counties, all candidates who aren’t Democrats and Republicans are put in a far right-hand column on the ballot under the uninspiring ballot heading, “By petition.”

The 24th district is in Sussex County, in north rural New Jersey.

Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King, Jr., has this essay on the chances for a strong presidential candidate in 2012 who runs outside the two major parties.

If you click the link and only the first paragraph is visible, try going to news.google.com and inserting “Two-Party System Begs for a Third”. That will probably produce the entire article.

On November 23, the Eighth Circuit refused to rehear Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger, 10-3212, and also refused to amend its original October 2011 opinion, which erroneously said that when a party submits 7,000 valid signatures, it remains ballot-qualified indefinitely afterwards. The October 2011 decision had said North Dakota needs a primary vote test for minor party candidates, because otherwise the ballot would become too crowded because there is no other ballot access barrier. In truth, a party that submits 7,000 signatures is only on the ballot for one election, and it is then removed from the ballot unless it polled 5% for Governor or President (if the last election was a presidential election year) or Secretary of State (if the last election was a midterm year).

It is very odd for a court to fail to fix a factual error, when the factual error is pointed out in a rehearing request. Generally the panel denies rehearing, but issues an amended opinion fixing the error.