Arizona political parties that appeared on the November 2008 ballot need registration of two-thirds of 1% by November 2009, in order to remain on the ballot for 2010. Arizona recently did a registration tally. The official results show that, currently, a party needs 20,587 registrations to meet the requirement. The Arizona Libertarian Party has been doing a registration drive, and the party now has 20,256 registrants, so it only needs another 331 registrants to meet the threshold, and there are six months to finish. However, the threshold is a moving target, and by the time November 2009 comes around, it will probably be slightly higher.

Arizona Libertarian registration in November 2008 was 18,153.

The Arizona Green Party now has 4,210 registrants.

If either the Libertarian or Green Parties had managed to poll 5% for president in November 2008, there would be no need for either party to have any particular number of registrants. The two-thirds of 1% registration test is an alternative to meeting the 5% vote test.

On April 20, newly appointed U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York met with state leaders of the Working Families Party. See this news article.

On April 20, a 3-judge panel of the North Carolina Appeals Court heard arguments in Libertarian Party of North Carolina v State Board of Elections, a case filed in 2005. The arguments lasted for one hour. The judges were John C. Martin (who asked no questions), Sanford L. Steeleman (who asked the attorney for the state whether it would help with ballot crowding to have just one party on the ballot), and Ann Marie Calabria. UPDATE: here is a newspaper story about the hearing; thanks to Independent Political Report for the link.

A decision will probably be out in three or four months. The case will probably depend on whether the judges feel that the North Carolina Constitution gives more protection to voting rights than the U.S. Constitution. The North Carolina Constitution says, “All elections shall be free”, and also “Every qualified voter in North Carolina who is 21 years of age, except as in this Constitution disqualified, shall be eligible for election to the people to office.” The U.S. Constitution does not have similar language.

North Carolina is one of only four states in which Ralph Nader has never appeared on the ballot. It was one of only four states in which Ron Paul’s name didn’t appear on the ballot in the 1988 election, when he was the Libertarian Party presidential nominee.