The three minor parties that run the largest number of candidates across the nation are the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties. In the November 2008 election, here is the best percentage in the nation for each of these party’s U.S. House nominees (excluding races in which one of the two major parties didn’t run anyone):

Constitution Party: Jim Noorlander, in Utah’s 3rd district, polled 6.11%.

Green Party: Carol Wolman, in California’s 1st district, polled 8.54%.

Libertarian Party: Ted Brown, in California’s 26th district, got 6.92%.

On January 15, the Ohio Secretary of State ruled that parties that were ballot-qualified during 2008 will also be considered ballot-qualified for 2009 as well. Ohio has no regularly-scheduled partisan elections for federal or state office in 2009. But some municipalities hold partisan elections during 2009.

On January 14, the 11th circuit agreed with a U.S. District Court that Georgia may require voters at the polls to show a government photo-ID. Common Cause v Billups, 07-14664.

The decision, written by Judge William Pryor (who was once Alabama’s Attorney General) seems to contain a factual error in the first paragraph. It says, “Before an adult passenger can board an airplane for a commercial flight in the United States, the passenger must present to a federal official an identification card with a photograph of the passenger.” Actually, passengers without such photo ID can still fly if they consent to an extra-thorough search, and if they can orally establish their identity. See this TSA policy. Apparently, TSA uses its computers to log onto the credit record of someone who doesn’t have photo ID. Then the TSA employee quizzes the person without ID to see if he or she can answer questions; the answers can be verified via the on-line credit report.