Maine requires a ballot-qualified party to hold at least one municipal caucus in each of the 16 counties of the state, in the spring of each even-numbered year. Independent Maine representative Ben Chipman, who is closely associated with the Green Party, earlier this year introduced LD 142, to change the requirement so that parties are only obliged to hold caucuses within any 12 counties, instead of all 16. The bill passed the Joint Committee on State and Local Government last month, but it has been stalled ever since. This Portland Daily Sun story describes the bill and the trouble that it is having.

Maine is the only state that requires a political party to have organizations within every county. In 1989 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee that states cannot tell parties how to be organized. Specifically, the co-plaintiff Libertarian Party of California in that case was granted the freedom to organize itself on a regional basis (the party created its own regions), and to be free of a state election law that required organization on a county basis.

Wyoming lets a petition to recognize a new party start circulating on April 1 of the odd year before the election. The petition is due on June 1 of the election year, so the state allows 14 months. The Constitution Party has never before qualified as a party in Wyoming, but it is determined to be on in 2012, and started on the first possible date. It now has 200 signatures toward the requirement of 3,734 valid signatures.