Currently, Wisconsin has four qualified parties:  Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican.  A party remains on the ballot if it polls 1% for any statewide race in a midterm year.  This year, no Green filed for a statewide office in the Green Party primary.  Also this year, no Libertarian filed for a statewide office in the Libertarian Party primary except for a candidate for Lieutenant Governor.  But because Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected on a joint ticket in November, the nomination of the Libertarian candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Terry Virgil, is a futile act.  The state won’t print him on the November ballot without a gubernatorial running mate.

There are four Libertarians on the Libertarian primary ballot for state legislature, and one for U.S. House.  The Greens have one candidate on their own primary ballot for the legislature, Ben Manski.

Independent candidates qualified for the November ballot for U.S. Senate, and for Governor, and for five of the eight U.S. House seats, and for quite a few legislative seats.

For a party to get back on the ballot, or for a new party to qualify, 10,000 signatures are needed.  They can only be collected in the first half of an even-numbered year.  Or, if an unqualified party runs a statewide candidate who gets 1% of the vote, the unqualified party becomes qualified.  Wisconsin will have a U.S. Senate election in 2012, so either the Green Party or the Libertarian Party can regain their status after November 2012 if their U.S. Senate candidate, or their presidential candidate, polls 1% in 2012.

On July 14, a U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, upheld part of Florida public funding for gubernatorial candidates.  Specifically, the ruling upholds the part of the program that gives extra public funding to candidates who have privately-funded opponents with a great amount of private contrributions.  See this story.  The Florida case is Scott v Roberts, 4:10-cv-283.  A quick appeal will be made to the 11th circuit.

The Florida law this year gives extra public funding to Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is running in the Republican primary against multi-millionaire Rick Scott.  The law triggers extra public funding when the privately funded candidate spends as much as $24,900,000.

These provisions for extra public funding have recently now been upheld in the 9th circuit (in an Arizona case) and in this Florida case, but ruled unconstitutional in the recent Connecticut 2nd circuit decision.  The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated an interest in the Arizona case, and will probably decide the issue for the whole nation.

On July 14, the Tea Party submitted 59,400 signatures on a petition to qualify itself as a political party in Michigan.  If at least 38,024 signatures are valid, the party will then be ballot-qualified and will nominate candidates by convention.  See this story.  Most reporters suspect that the group that collected the signatures has nothing to do with the tea party movement, and that the resources for the petition are from individuals and groups who generally support the Democratic Party.

Just having the Tea Party qualified means little, if the party doesn’t nominate candidates.  In 2004 groups linked to the Democratic Party qualified two parties in Colorado, the Pro Life Party and the Gun Owners Rights Party.  However, neither party never actually nominated any candidates, and the two parties went off the Colorado ballot for failing to meet either the vote test or the registration test.  Thanks to Jason Miller for this news.