Los Angeles County election officials have released this sample ballot for the upcoming special election for the special election in the 28th district of the California State Senate. As one can see, the candidates who are registered members of qualified parties are permitted to list their party preference on the ballot, but the candidates who are not registered members of a qualified party are forced to have “no party preference” listed next to their names. One of the two candidates with that label, Mark Lipman, does not object to it. But the other candidate with that label, Michael Chamness, does object to that label. He is a registered member of the Coffee Party and he wants to have “My party preference is the Coffee Party” on the ballot. He has applied to intervene in the lawsuit Field v Bowen, now pending in the State Court of Appeals.

The purpose of listing “party preference” on the ballot in the top-two systems of Washington and California is to help the candidate communicate a message, and to help the voter know something about the candidate. The U.S. Supreme Court, and the California Supreme Court, have ruled in the past that it is unconstitutional to discriminate for or against candidates, relative to labels on the ballot. The meaning of the party preference is not that the party approves of the candidate. The meaning of the party preference is to illustrate the mind-set of the candidate. Therefore, it is not rational to tell candidates that they can only reveal their mind-set on the ballot if they prefer a large party, or an already-established party, versus a new party. Washington state officials understand this, and that is why they let all candidates choose any “party preference”, as long as it isn’t obscene and is no longer than 16 characters.

Former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado understands this point. In May 2010 he was on television in New York city, being interviewed, and he said under the California top-two system that he sponsored, any candidate could choose any party label. He said, for example, that a candidate could prefer the Farmer Party. Also, in December 2010, when he received an award from IndependentVoting, he told the group that under his plan, all candidates can choose any label they wish. But the California Secretary of State and the California Attorney General do not agree. And even Maldonado’s attorneys don’t seem to agree with him. In the Superior Court, Maldonado’s attorneys argued vociferously against letting members of unqualified parties list their party preference. In the State Court of Appeals they seemed to reverse their position. But then in their papers in the State Supreme Court they seemed to suggest that they don’t know what the law means, relative to labels.

In the election of November 2006, minor party and independent candidates for the lower house of state legislatures polled 1,509,058 votes across the United States. By comparison, in November 2010, minor party and independent candidates for the lower house of state legislatures polled 2,084,514 votes.

A large majority of state legislative seats had no minor party or independent candidate on the ballot in either year. In 2006, in the states with regularly-scheduled legislative elections, there were 6,159 legislative seats up (this includes both houses), but only 724 minor party and independent candidates for both houses of all the states. In 2010, there were 6,103 seats up, and 915 minor party and independent candidates for both houses. This does not include Nebraska, which has a non-partisan Senate and no lower chamber. It also doesn’t include the four states that don’t elect state legislators in mid-term even-numbered years (Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia). Of course, there were some districts with more than one minor party or independent candidate in that race, so one can’t use this data to know exactly what share of seats had no “other” choice on the ballot.

In districts that elect more than one legislator, only the top vote-getter from each party, or only the top vote-getting independent, was included in the tally.

The reason there were fewer legislative seats up in 2010 than in 2006 is that North Dakota implemented a new plan in 2008, and now all of its state house members have four-year terms, and only half of them are up in any one particular election year.

The state-by-state breakdown for vote totals for lower house of the legislature of each state, by party, will appear in the printed February 1, 2011 issue of Ballot Access News. Unfortunately, the chart won’t include Democratic and Republican vote totals, just vote totals for each minor party and also the independent candidates. Calculating the Republican and Democratic national vote totals for all the nation’s state legislative districts would be worthwhile, but it would also be a huge amount of work.

On November 2, the Oregon Independent Party nominee for State Representative, 48th district, polled 42.71% of the vote in a two-person race against the incumbent Democrat. The Independent Party nominee was Jeff Caton, a professional financial planner. Although Oregon permits fusion, Caton was not the nominee of any party other than the Independent Party.

The 48th district includes part of Clackamas County and part of Multnomah County. Caton carried the part of the district in Clackamas County.

This was the closest a minor party had come to electing anyone to federal or state office in Oregon since at least 1932. No one other than Democratic or Republican nominees has been elected to the Oregon legislature since 1920. There have been two Oregon independent state legislators in recent years, but they were not elected as independents. Instead they were elected as major party nominees and then once elected had changed their registration to “independent.” Also, U.S. Senator Wayne Morse was elected as a Republican in 1950, but then changed his registration to “Independent”, but when he had to run for re-election in 1956, he changed again, to the Democratic Party, and was re-elected as a Democrat.

The Independent Party of Oregon has existed since 2006. In 2010, it held a mail primary election for itself, at its own expense, to choose its nominees.