For the first time in the history of public funding for presidential elections, a major party has declined to accept general election public funding. The system has existed starting with the 1976 presidential election. The decision was made by Barack Obama. By turning down $80,000,000 in public funds, this year’s Democratic presidential campaign is free to spend as much money as it can raise privately.

In past years, there hasn’t been enough money to promptly pay primary season matching funds (which have the lowest priority, when there isn’t enough money in the fund to pay all obligations). The Democratic Party’s decision of June 19 means that there will now be no shortage of funds for the primary season matching program. Assuming the FEC gets a quorum very soon, primary season funds for Ralph Nader should be available quickly. Cynthia McKinney is also striving to qualify for primary season matching funds.

Arizona assumes independent candidate petitions are valid, if they have more than the legal minimum number of signatures and have no obvious other flaw. June 18 was the last day for anyone to file challenges to any Arizona independent petition. Ralph Nader was the only independent presidential candidate who filed this year. No one challenged his petition.

By contrast, in 2004, his petition was challenged, and was found to lack enough valid signatures. Arizona is the second state in which Nader has qualified for the ballot this year and in which he did not succeed in getting on in 2004; the other one is Hawaii.

The current Arizona independent candidate law was written in 1993. Nader is the first independent presidential candidate to successfully use the law. It required 21,759 valid signatures this year.

On June 17, Indiana State Senator John Waterman (R-Shelburn) said he will try to get on the ballot as the Taxpayers Party candidate for Governor. He needs 32,742 valid signatures by Monday, June 30. He is motivated to run because neither major party is giving enough property tax relief.

His Senate seat will not be jeopardized, because he was re-elected to a four-year term in 2006. He has been in the State Senate since 1994. Before that, he was a county sheriff for eight years. See this story. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for the link.

If he gets on the ballot, no matter how many votes he gets, his party will not be ballot-qualified after the election is over. The only way an Indiana group may become a qualified party is by polling 2% of the vote for Secretary of State, and Secretary of State is not up in presidential/gubernatorial election years. Indiana is one of only two states in which it is impossible for a group to become a qualified party in a presidential election year. The other such state is New York.