Colorado is expected to have 18 presidential candidates on its November ballot, the most for any state in U.S. history. The prior record had been 14 presidential candidates, set in 1992 in Iowa, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Colorado has five qualified parties: Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Green, and Libertarian. In addition to the presidential nominees of those five parties, thireteen other presidential candidates filed by the June 17 deadline. They needed no petition; they just needed $500 and a list of presidential elector candidates.

The 13 pairs include:

Unaffiliated: Alan Keyes for president and Brian Rohrbough for vice-president. Rohrbough lives in Morrison, Colorado, and is president of American Right to Life. One of his children was killed in the Columbine School shooting. Rohrbough is somewhat well-known for having a monument erected that blames the incident on legalized abortion and the policy of not allowing teachers to lead public school students in prayer, in the classroom.

Unaffiliated: Elvena Lloyd-Duffie for president, no one listed for vice-president. She can add a vice-presidential candidate later. She lives in Chicago. She chose the ballot label “Republican” but the state will require her to change that, and if she doesn’t, she will be “Unaffiliated” on the ballot.

Unaffiliated: William Koenig for president, no one for vice-president. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Unaffiliated: Frank McEnulty for president, David Mangan for vice-president. They are the nominees of the New American Independent Party but they chose not to use that ballot labe.

Unaffiliated: Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez.

Boston Tea: Charles Jay and Dan Sallis. Jay lives in Hollywood, Florida; Sallis lives in Littleton, Colorado.

Heartquake ’08: Jonathan Allen of Olathe, Colorado, and Jeffrey Stath, Ventura, California.

Objectivist: Thomas Stevens of Fresh Meadows, N.Y., and Alden Link of Paramus, N.J.

Pacifist: Bradford Lyttle and Abraham Bassford, both of Chicago.

Prohibition: Gene Amondson and Howard Lydick.

Socialism: Gloria La Riva and Robert Moses. The party’s actual vice-presidential candidate is under age 35, so Moses is a stand-in.

Socialist: Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander.

Socialist Workers: James Harris and Alyson Kennedy. The party’s actual presidential candidate was not born in the U.S., so Harris is a stand-in.

Indiana State Senator John Waterman, a Republican, had been trying to get on the ballot for Governor, under the label “Taxpayers Party”. The deadline was June 30 and he needed 32,742 valid signatures. He has now said that he only collected about 3,000 signatures.

Waterman will continue to serve in the Indiana Senate. He was first elected in 1994 and he is not running for re-election now, since he is in the middle of his current four-year term. It is conceivable that he might be interested in introducing a bill next year to ease the petition requirement. No statewide minor party or independent petition has succeeded in Indiana since 2000. Indiana is one of five states in which Ralph Nader has never appeared on the ballot, and Nader is not trying in Indiana this year. Thanks to Ed Feigenbaum for the news.