California is one of the few states in which the government mails a Voters Pamphlet to all voters, a few weeks before any public election. In partisan primaries, the election law lets qualified political parties furnish an envelope to elections officials, and the elections officials then include that envelope in all the Voters Pamphlets that are going to members of that party. The purpose of the envelope is to make it easy for a voter to send a contribution to that party.

The San Diego Republican Party this year furnished not only an envelope, but a flyer, for insertion into the Voters Pamphlets that are going to Republican registrants. According to this article, the San Diego County Democratic Party sued to stop the insert, but the judge allowed the insert after he ordered some changes in the content of the insert.

Alex Snitker, the Florida Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. Senate, has qualified for the ballot by paying the very large filing fee (slightly more than $10,000, although a relatively small part of that money goes to the party). See this story.

He is the first Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senator to be on the Florida ballot. The only other minor parties that have had a candidate on the ballot for U.S. Senate in Florida since 1924 are the American Party in 1974, the Natural Law and Reform Parties in 2000, and the Veterans Party in 2004.

The only other states that have never had a Libertarian on the ballot for U.S. Senate are Arkansas, Maine, Maryland, and Rhode Island. The Maryland Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified and may nominate someone for U.S. Senate. The Arkansas Libertarian Party is attempting to become ballot-qualified and if it succeeds, it may run someone for U.S. Senate.

The 9th circuit will hear Nader v Cronin on June 17, in Honolulu. This is the case that challenges the number of signatures needed for an independent presidential candidate in Hawaii. The basis for the lawsuit is that it is not even rational to require over 4,000 signatures for independent presidential candidates, when the state permits a fully-qualified party (with its own primary) to qualify with 663 signatures.

This is the only ballot access case from 2004 that is still unsettled, except for Nader’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee (pending in state court in Maine), and except for Nader’s ongoing litigation over the $81,000 he was charged in Pennsylvania in 2004.

It may seem that 4,000 signatures is a trivial burden, but that is not the case. Hawaii tends to be extremely severe when it checks petitions, and invalidates signatures if the signer shows neither the last four digits of a Social Security number, or the birthday. No independent presidential petition has succeeded in Hawaii since 1996.