August 4 was the deadline for the Progressive Party of Oregon to bring its registration up to one-tenth of 1% of the 2006 gubernatorial vote.  That requirement is 1,380 registrants.  The party succeeded, with approximately 1,800 registered members.

The party had already been ballot-qualified.  It won that status by polling over 1% of the presidential vote in 2008 for its candidate, Ralph Nader.  But Oregon requires a minimum number of registrants, even for parties that satisfy the vote test.  Parties have almost two years after they first met the vote test, to satisfy the registration test.

The party had originally been named the Peace Party, but it changed its name in September 2009.  But that meant it had to scramble to satisfy the registration test, because people who had been registered in the Peace Party would not automatically be converted into being members of the party under its new name.  It was necessary for those voters to fill out a new voter registration form, if they wanted to continue being members.  Of course the party was free to persuade any voters, not just former members, to register into it to help it meet the requirement.  Thanks to Dan Meek for this news.

Oregon’s other ballot-qualified minor parties easily met the registration test.  They are the Constitution, Green, Independent, and Libertarian Parties.  Oregon has more ballot-qualified parties than any other state in the west.

The Constitution Party of Illinois submitted approximately 34,000 signatures at the end of June for its statewide slate of candidates.  The petition was challenged.  The process by which State Board of Elections officials check each individual signature, over the watchful eyes of proponents and opponents of that petition, has been finished.  The result seems to be that the petition has 25,017 valid signatures.  Because 25,000 are required, this is good news for the Constitution Party.  However, there is still the possibility that the objectors will take further legal action to overturn the results.  Thanks to Gary Odom for this news.

Newsweek recently reported that the national Democratic Party’s bylaws committees, back on July 10, rejected one of the recommendations of the Democratic Change Committee.  The Democratic Change Committee had been appointed to recommend changes in the party’s presidential nominee selection process.  The Democratic Change Committee had voted to eliminate superdelegates, but the Bylaws Committee of the National Committee had vetoed that idea.  See the story here.

As the Newsweek story says, the Bylaws Committee action was made without publicity, and until the magazine was working on the story, some of the members of the Democratic Change Committee hadn’t even known this news.