On November 1, the Arizona Secretary of State released new registration data for each party. See this story. This is the first Arizona tally to include Americans Elect, which has 69 registered members.
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On November 1, the Florida Republican Party announced that these nine candidates will be listed on the Republican presidential primary ballot: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. In Florida, the party has complete control over who appears on its presidential primary ballot. There is no fee, no petition alternative, no reference to the news media, and no reference to primary season matching funds. Instead, the state chair of the party, the party leader in the State Senate, and the party leader in the State House, together decide which names will appear, using whatever standards they wish.
Buddy Roemer, who is not only a former Louisiana Governor, but a former member of Congress, is also seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and he had tried to persuade the Florida Republican leaders to include him, but they refused to do so. The Florida ballot access rule for presidential primaries has already been upheld in federal court, after David Duke tried and failed to get on the Florida Republican presidential primary in 1992. The only other state with a similar restriction for getting on presidential primary ballots is Georgia.
On November 1, Americans Elect submitted its petition to be on the Arkansas ballot in 2012, for President only. Arkansas requires 1,000 signatures for parties that only want to be on the ballot for President, and 10,000 for parties that want ballot status for all office. Americans Elect turned in 2,900 signatures.
On November 1, the Ohio Secretary of State issued a directive, putting the Americans Elect, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, and Socialist Parties on the 2012 ballot. The directive isn’t posted on the Secretary of State’s web page yet, but can be seen here. This post has been updated.
On October 31, the North Dakota Libertarian Party filed this 12-page rehearing request in Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger, 10-3212. The issue in the lawsuit is whether a state may require a small qualified party to attract as much as 15% of the primary voters to choose that party’s primary ballot, if it wants to have nominees for the legislature on the November ballot.
One of the peculiar aspects of the North Dakota primary vote test requirement is that it is so much harsher for legislative candidates, than candidates for Congress or statewide state office. The primary vote test for statewide office is 300 votes, which means the statewide candidates need an average of about 6 voters within each legislative district to choose the minor party’s primary ballot. But if that same party wants to have a legislative candidate on the ballot in November, the number of voters within that legislative district to choose that party’s primary ballot can be as high as 130 voters, i.e., over twenty times as high as the test for statewide candidates.