Prominent California Democratic Party activist Bill Cavala has this op-ed in the March 9 California Progress Report, on the “top-two” proposal that California voters will consider in June 2010. Cavala points out that the system would leave no party nominees on the November ballot, and likely no members of minor parties on the November ballot. Therefore, they would all fail to poll 2% of the vote for a statewide race by default, and go off the ballot, unless they have registration of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. Here is the op-ed. Cavala notes that for parties that do stay on the ballot under the current law (by meeting the 2% vote test), there is also a mandatory registration test, but it is only one-fifteenth of 1%. He says that figure is low because the Prohibition Party lobbied successfully to get it down that low. His history is basically accurate, but not totally accurate. The Prohibition Party only succeeded in lowering that registration test once, in 1957. It persuaded the legislature to lower it from one-tenth of 1% to one-fifteenth of 1% that year. But in 1964, when it tried to get it lowered again, to one-twentieth of 1%, the bill failed. As a result, the party failed the one-fifteenth of 1% registration test in the 1964 tally.
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