Earlier this year, it appeared that the South Carolina legislature was probably going to make ballot access for independent candidates more difficult. The Senate passed SB 590, to say that primary voters could not sign independent candidate petitions. The bill also made it illegal for newly-registered voters to sign for independent candidates, and said that no one could sign for more than one independent candidate for the same office. But the bill did lower the number of signatures.

The House passed HB 3746, which is worse. It has all the undesirable characteristics of the Senate bill, and it does not reduce the number of signatures.

Both bills passed in February. Since then, neither bill has made any headway. The legislature will probably be in session until June. South Carolina legislators seem to have a tendency to almost pass bad ballot access bills, and then generally the legislature loses interest in them and they never pass entirely. A few years ago a bill to outlaw fusion made substantial progress, but never passed. And before that, a bill to require independent candidates to pay a filing fee in addition to submitting a difficult petition also made substantial headway, but was then abandoned.

South Carolina ballot access for independent candidates for district office is already very difficult. No one has ever qualified as an independent candidate for U.S. House, in the entire history of government-printed ballots in that state. Nor has there ever been an independent candidate on a government-printed ballot for Governor or U.S. Senator.

California is the only state that prints occupations of candidates on the ballot. On March 25, John Eastman, a Republican running for Attorney General, filed a lawsuit to have “Assistant Attorney General” next to his name on the primary ballot. He is a California resident and an Assistant Attorney General in South Dakota. California’s Secretary of State refused to let Eastman have “Assistant Attorney General” as his ballot occupation. See this story.

The California Secretary of State, for well over 100 years, has been publishing official election returns, in a booklet called “Statement of Votes.” These booklets always contain a chart showing historical data on turnout.

These booklets show that California voter turnout is always significantly higher in November general elections, than in primary elections. In the entire history of voter registration in California, over 50% of the registered voters have always turned out for regularly-scheduled general elections.

But no matter what kind of primary election system California has used in past decades, voter turnout in non-presidential primaries is always under 50% of the registered voters. One must go back to 1982 to find any non-presidential California primary election in which at least 50% of the registered voters voted. In June 1982, 52.7% of the registered voters voted.

Even when California used a blanket primary, in 1998, voter turnout in the June 1998 primary was only 42.5% of registered voters. It is true that turnout in the June 1998 primary was better than non-presidential primaries since then. But, California primaries since 1998 have always featured a Governor running for re-election. Generally, turnout in mid-term primaries is higher when there is no incumbent Governor running for re-election. Perhaps turnout in the June 2010 primary will be relatively high, because no incumbent Governor is running for re-election.

Turnout in November elections is always higher than turnout in June primaries because voter interest is always higher in election years in the fall, rather than in the spring. November elections are of heightened public interest, in California and in all states, because the entire nation is voting in November. The drama caused by the fact that all U.S. voters are voting nationwide on the same day, plus the higher stakes in November elections, guarantees that the fall campaign season will always be the high point of voter interest. Proposition 14, shutting all minor party, independent, and non-establishment campaigns out of the fall season, will significantly curtail the circulation of political ideas.