Utah Representative Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman) says he will introduce a bill to ease the definition of “political party”, from a group that polled 2% of the statewide vote in the last election, to a group that polled 2% of the statewide vote in either of the last two elections.

Under existing law, it is fairly easy for a party to pass the vote test in a presidential election year, because there are always five or six statewide offices up in presidential years. But it is difficult for a minor party to remain ballot-qualified in a midterm year, because there is never any statewide race up in mid-term years, except U.S. Senate (and in one third of the midterm years, there is no statewide office up at all).

When there is no statewide office up at all, the only way any party can remain ballot-qualified is to poll approximately 6% for one of the U.S. House races. The vote test applies to any office (whether statewide or not), but the denominator for the percentage is the statewide vote for all 3 U.S. House races put together.

In 2008, both the Constitution and Libertarian Parties met the vote test and are now ballot-qualified. The Constitution Party did the good work of finding a sponsor for the 2009 bill.

The Philadelphia Inquirer of January 28 has this op-ed by Ralph Nader, on Pennsylvania’s unique system of charging candidates who fail to get on the ballot with the costs associated with checking their petitions. Thanks to Oliver Hall for the link.

Last year, five individuals filed to run for the Florida legislature in the Green Party primary. None of the five were known to leaders of the Green Party, and all of the five seemed to avoid any attempts to communicate with them by the press and by Green Party leaders. The suspicion was that the five had been recruited by Republican Party activists to enter particular races that were perceived as close. As it turned out, none of the five nominees tipped the outcome; the winner in all five legislative races received an absolute majority. Later, the state chair of the Green Party sued one of the candidates who appeared unable to pay the rather large filing fee, to find out who had paid that fee. The case has a hearing on February 19 in state court in Pasco County. King v Roman, 51-2008-ca-8091-ws.