Minnesota held its primary on August 10.  Minnesota does not have registration by party, and any voter is free to vote in any party’s primary.  According to unofficial results, 3.0% of the voters chose the Independence Party’s primary ballot.  That is a better primary showing for that party than in 1998, when 2.6% of the voters voted in the party’s primary (at the time, it was named the Reform Party).  Of course, 1998 is the year that party won the gubernatorial election.  Its nominee, Jesse Ventura, was elected in November 1998 with 37.0% of the total vote.

At the 2010 primary, Tom Horner won the Independence Party’s gubernatorial nomination, with 64.2% of the vote in a 5-candidate field.

Faye Coffield, who recently lost her ballot case case in the 11th circuit, has decided to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review.  The “question presented” (every cert petition begins with a single sentence, telling the Court the “question presented”) may be,  “Does the U.S. Constitution protect the ability of minor party and independent candidates to run for the U.S. House of Representatives?””  Georgia has kept all minor party and independent candidates off the ballot for U.S. House, in regularly-scheduled elections, since 1964.

Georgia has less stringent procedures for special elections.  In the context above, “regularly-scheduled” means an election held in the first week of November in even-numbered years.

Billy McKinney, Cynthia McKinney’s father, did appear on a Georgia ballot in 1982 for U.S. House of Representatives, but his election was not held on the normal federal election day, and he was not required to comply with the requirements that exist in regularly-scheduled elections.

The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) has been helping pay the expenses of the Coffield case so far, and the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will probably cost $2,000.  Donations to COFOE for this purpose are needed very badly.  Checks can be made out to COFOE and sent to PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147.  People who contribute at least $25 receive a free subscription to Ballot Access News for a year.

The only other states that have had a Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly in U.S. House elections for a period as long as Georgia have been Louisiana (1918-1970), Florida (1926-1972), and North Carolina  (1902-1946).  Except for Georgia, all states have had minor party or independent candidates, or both, on the ballot for U.S. House of Representatives this decade.

Carl Paladino, gubernatorial candidate of the Taxpayer Party of New York, filed 30,000 signatures on August 10, the first day on which petitions for the general election may be submitted.  15,000 are required.  Paladino is permitted to supplement that filing in the following week, and he expects to do so.  He is also running in the Republican gubernatorial primary in September.

The New York petition deadline is August 17.  Paladino insists that he will also win the Republican primary.  He has been ambivalent about whether he will withdraw as the Taxpayer Party candidate if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination.