The Independent Party is ballot-qualified in New Mexico. It polled over one-half of 1% of the presidential vote in New Mexico in 2008 for its nominee, Ralph Nader. Therefore, it remained ballot-qualified through the 2012 election.

The Independent Party is about to decide whether to change its name to the Justice Party. That would save the Justice Party the expense of doing its own petition drive in New Mexico. New Mexico already has a precedent that ballot-qualified parties may change their names. In 1979 it let the Prohibition Party change its name to the National Statesman Party. The Prohibition Party had been continuously ballot-qualified in New Mexico since 1976, when that name change was approved.

On February 13, the Hamilton County, Ohio, Board of Elections, voted on whether to appeal the Hunter lawsuit to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th circuit. This is the somewhat famous lawsuit on whether or not certain provisional ballots should be counted, in a November 2010 Juvenile Court partisan race. The Republican members of the Hamilton County Board of Elections voted to appeal, and the Democrats voted not to appeal. In Ohio, when a County Election Board has a tie vote, the Secretary of State breaks the tie.

The U.S. District Court had ruled on February 8 that the provisional ballots should be counted, even though they were cast in the wrong precinct, but in the correct building. The basis for the decision was that, even though Ohio provisional ballots are void if they are cast in the wrong precinct, the county had counted certain other provisional ballots that hadn’t been cast in the correct precinct.

The lawsuit has lasted so long already, the judicial office in question has been vacant for fifteen months. See this story.

On February 13, the Socialist Equality Party announced that it will run Jerry White for President, and Phyllis Scherrer for Vice-President. See this release from the party. This is the fourth ticket by a party with “Socialist” or “Socialism” in its name so far in 2012. The others are the Socialist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Freedom Socialist Party.

The Socialist Equality Party was founded by people who had originally established the Workers League. The Workers League first ran candidates for public office in 1974, but didn’t run its first presidential candidate until 1984.

The Socialist Workers Party, which has run a presidential candidate in every election starting in 1948, still has not nominated a national ticket. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.