Maine lets any voter vote early, starting in mid-September. Eliot Cutler, who came within 10,000 votes of being elected Maine’s independent Governor this year, has this Wall Street Journal op-ed, criticizing the Maine system. He makes the point that it distorts the collective decision of the voters when the voting period extends over such a long period of time, because many voters vote before the campaign is complete. Thanks to Tim Brace for the link.
Modern Times Magazine has a lengthy story about the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties on its web page. See here.
The Colorado Constitution Party only had 1,271 registered members in June 2010. Now it has 2,731. That is still very small, but the rate of growth is unusual. It is almost unheard of for any party to double its registration in a short time, unless it is doing a registration drive to qualify for the ballot. It seems clear that the growth is related to the publicity the party received when Tom Tancredo became its gubernatorial candidate.
Party registration statistics are slow to change. Even though the Republican Party is the dominant party in the south, the Democratic Party still has substantially more registered members than the Republican Party in all the southern states that have registration by party. The only states in which the Republican Party has more registered voters than the Democratic Party are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
On November 16, the independent candidate who is challenging North Carolina’s petition requirements for independent U.S. House candidates filed this brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th circuit. The law requires a petition signed by 4% of the number of registered voters. No independent candidate has ever appeared on a North Carolina government-printed ballot for that office. However, the U.S. District Court upheld the law because it is believed that an independent candidate petition did succeed this year. However, the petition was for a candidate who then refused to run. The petition had been sponsored by the Service Employees International Union, which has a great deal of resources and which probably spent between $50,000 and $100,000 on the drive.
The Libertarian Party national committee meets in New Orleans on November 20-21, and will choose the city that hosts the national convention of 2012. The committee will also set the dates of that convention.
