Bill Shireman, a well-known writer and speaker about the environment, on business, and on the future, has this interesting and original commentary on the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, posted at the Huffington Post.
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New Hampshire Representative Joel Winters has introduced HB 1264. It makes thoughtful improvements to the ability of new and previously unqualified parties to get on the ballot.
Existing law says defines “party” to be a group that polled at least 4% for either U.S. Senate or Governor at the last election. All parties nominate by primary. A group that is not a qualified party can qualify to have all its nominees placed on the November ballot via a single petition, if that petition is signed by 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The 3% petition has existed in the law since 1996, but is so difficult it has only been used once, in 2000, by the Libertarian Party. Furthermore, the status of a group that successfully completes the 3% petition is ambiguous; it isn’t really a qualified party and voters can’t register into it and be tallied as members.
HB 1264 sets up a two-tier system of qualified parties, something that 16 other states already have. Under HB 1264, a party that polled 2% for either U.S. Senate or Governor, or which has at least 3,000 registered members, or which submits a petition of 5,000 signatures, is a qualified party. It would nominate by convention. Primaries would be reserved for parties that had met the 4% vote test that already exists in the law. This “two-tier” idea, in which there are two types of qualified political party (smaller ones nominating by convention, and larger ones nominating by primary) is also used in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The “two-tier” idea saves taxpayer money. It avoids the expense of the government putting on a primary for small qualified parties. Because it relieves the small qualified parties from submitting petitions, it also saves election administrators from the expense of checking the validity of petitions.
Another ballot access improvement bill has been introduced by Representative Shawn Jasper. It is HB 1188, a much shorter and simpler bill. It merely cuts the existing 3% petition for a group to place all its nominees on the general election ballot, to 1.5%.
On December 9, the Ohio Senate passed SB 8, the Senate’s version of the omnibus election law bill. The bill is different from HB 260, the House version of the omnibus election law bill.
The Senate bill provides that the voter registration form would ask voters if they wish to join a political party. Proposed section 3503.14 says, “The voter may identify the political party, if any, with which the voter desires to be affiliated. The space for identifying a political party shall be labeled ‘optional’ on any form the Secretary of State prescribes.”
Ohio voter registration forms in the past have never asked about party membership, and Ohio voters in the past have “joined” various political parties by the act of choosing one particular party’s primary ballot. Elections officials keep a record of which party’s primary ballot the voter chooses.
SB 8 provides that a voter who chooses a political party on a voter registration form is thereafter barred from running in any different party’s primary, far into the future. For example, if someone filled out a voter registration form on December 1,2009, saying he or she was a Republican, then that voter would be barred from running in a Democratic Party primary in 2010 or 2011, even if the voter had filled out another registration form on December 2, 2009 showing membership in the Democratic Party. Also someone who filled out a form showing party membership would be barred from running as an independent candidate for the next two years, even if the voter immediately retracted the decision to join a party.
The provision is also vague because it doesn’t say if the question on the voter registration form about political party membership would list any parties, or whether the question would require the voter to write-in the name of the party. And it doesn’t explain how to handle voters who register into parties that are not ballot-qualified.
SB 8 also moves the deadline to file as an independent presidential candidate from 75 days before the general election, to 90 days before. It also moves the deadline for candidates to file to get on a primary ballot from 75 days before the primary, to 90 days before the primary. It does not amend the unconstitutional laws that govern how new parties qualify for the ballot. It moves the deadline for filing as a declared write-in candidate from 62 days before the election to 72 days before.
On December 9, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court again refused to hear Ralph Nader’s request for a rehearing in the matter of whether he must pay approximately $80,000 in court costs stemming from the 2004 challenge to his petitions. In the meantime, the constitutional issue of whether states can force candidates to pay for the costs of election administration to this degree is pending in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
The publication “City Hall”, of New York city, has been running a lengthy series about the Working Families Party of New York state. The fifth edition of the series, carried on December 3, expands the topic to look at Working Families Parties in other states. See it here.