Georgia is holding a special election on January 5, 2010, to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 22nd district. Because it is a special election, all candidates may qualify without a petition, and parties don’t have nominees. However, the party label of each candidate is printed on the ballot. The candidates are a Libertarian, Taylor Bryant, and three Democrats (Hardie Davis, Harold Jones, and Sandra Scott).

This will be only the third time that any minor party candidate for State Senate has appeared on the ballot in a Georgia State Senate election, with the party label, in the last 67 years. There was also a Libertarian on the ballot for State Senate in 2002, Todd King; and a Libertarian on the ballot for State Senate in 1992, Larry Bolin. Other than that, there have been no minor party candidates for that office with the party label. This is because the petition hurdle, 5% of the number of registered voters, is virtually prohibitive in regular elections. And in special elections, it is only in the last few years that Georgia has permitted party labels.

In the November 2008 election for State Senate in the 22nd district, the vote had been: Democratic 79.5%; Republican 20.5%. The district is centered on Augusta.

Republicans and Democrats never need to petition in Georgia, because those two parties always poll over 20% of the vote for Governor, as well as polling 20% for President in the entire U.S. The law gives automatic ballot access for all offices to parties that meet either of those 20% hurdles. Libertarians must petition for legislative seats in regular elections, even though the party is on the ballot automatically for all statewide races, under a separate law that lets parties be on the ballot for statewide offices if they polled approximately 2% of the vote for any statewide race in the last election.

The Democratic Change Commission, a body set up by the Democratic National Committee, is meeting in Washington, D.C., this weekend to continue discussing how to improve the party’s procedures for choosing a presidential candidate. See this story. Mark Brewer of the Michigan Democratic Party continues to be the leader of those who disagree with the idea that any particular state should continue to have a permanent privileged position on the calendar.

Massachusetts has three ballot-qualified parties, Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian. Massachusetts is holding a special primary for U.S. Senate on December 8, 2009. No one qualified for the Libertarian Party primary, but election officials were forced by state law to print up Libertarian Party primary ballots anyway. See this story.

In theory, Libertarian registrants, and independents (who are permitted to choose the Libertarian primary ballot) could write-in someone. But, state law says no one can be nominated at a primary unless he or she polls a number of write-ins equal to 10% of the party’s registration (or, alternatively, a number of write-ins equal to the number of signatures needed to get on the primary ballot, whichever is less). Thus, anyone who wanted the Libertarian nomination would need approximately 1,300 write-ins. UPDATE: the original post contains an error. The part of the law letting Libertarians nominate someone by write-in vote is worse than originally described. Anyone winning the Libertarian nomination would have needed 10,000 write-ins.

No Libertarian qualified to get on the Libertarian primary ballot because that would have taken 10,000 signatures, and only registered Libertarians, and registered independents, may sign. Instead, a Libertarian Party dues-paying member who is a registered independent, Joseph Kennedy, qualified as an independent candidate for the special general election, which will be on January 19, 2010. Kennedy needed 10,000 signatures to qualify for the January election, but any registered voter was free to sign.

Massachusetts does not require write-in candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy, except for President. Therefore, in theory, any person who wanted the Libertarian nomination could have been conducting a write-in campaign beneath the radar of the Libertarian Party, and even beneath the radar of the media. However, it is very unlikely that anyone is actually doing this.

The Democratic primary ballot as four candidates, and the Republican primary ballot has two candidates.