On February 10, the Libertarian Party submitted approximately 12,000 signatures to become a qualified party in South Dakota. The legal requirement is 7,928. This is the first petition that the Libertarian Party has submitted in any state since June 2011, when it turned in its Arkansas petition. However, recently the party has been turning in signatures on its New Hampshire petition to the towns on a piece-meal basis. Other Libertarian Party petitions that are over half finished are the North Dakota and Oklahoma petitions.

The South Dakota Libertarian Party had previously completed party petitions in 1994, 2000, and 2004. A party that turns in a South Dakota party petition in a presidential year is automatically on the ballot for the next two elections. But when a party goes through a gubernatorial election and fails to poll as much as 2.5% for Governor, it is removed from the ballot, although it retains its registrants. The only time the South Dakota Libertarian Party ever met the vote test for Governor was in 1994.

Americans Elect and the Constitution Party are also petitioning for party status in South Dakota this year. If both qualify, South Dakota will have five qualified parties on the 2012 ballot, the most qualified parties in South Dakota since the 1910’s decade. The Green Party has never been ballot-qualified in South Dakota.

The Illinois Green Party is holding its own presidential primary on the internet, for members of the party. People are permitted to join the party on the same day they vote in the party’s presidential primary. Here is a link to the process.

On February 10, U.S. House member Joe Barton of Texas filed a brief with the 3-judge U.S. District Court in San Antonio that is hearing the redistricting lawsuit, advocating that the San Antonio court wait until the 3-judge U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. decides whether the legislature’s plan violates the Voting Rights Act.

Barton acknowledged that would delay redistricting quite a bit. His brief says, “Recognizing the interest of the statewide parties to conduct conventions, it is possible to bifurcate the presidential primary, if the Court so chooses. If the Court chooses to bifurcate the presidential primary, the other primaries could be held as late as the end of August. The presidential primary does not have a run-off election and programming andpreparing a single statewide ballot is relatively simple.” Thanks to TexasRedistricting blog for this news.

If Barton’s plan were to be adopted, one wonders what would happen to independent non-presidential candidate petition procedures. Texas says those petitions cannot be circulated until after the primary. Presumably, an independent candidate for office other than President would, under the Barton plan, not be allowed to start circulating until August, yet the state needs to print its ballots in early September.

Here is the map of Barton’s district as it was drawn after the 2000 census. It includes southeast Dallas and then a long swath of territory extending into rural areas that is barely attached to the Dallas part of the district. Barton was re-elected in 2010 with almost 70% of the vote.