Starting on May 22, North Carolina voters may now register as members of the Libertarian Party, and have those registrations tallied by elections officials. Although most voter registration forms don’t list the Libertarian Party as a choice, the forms all have a blank line, so the word “Libertarian” can be written in.

In most states with registration by party, when a party goes off the ballot, elections officials acknowledge that the party continues to have registered members. North Carolina is different. A few months after the November 2004 election, elections officials forcibly converted all the Libertarians to “independent”, unless those Libertarians chose to become Republicans or Democrats. The party thus lost over 13,000 registrants, and must start again from a baseline of zero. Even voters whose original signed voter registration form still says “Libertarian” must re-register as Libertarians.

The reason voters can now register “Libertarian” and have that tallied is because the state acknowledges that the party’s recent petition drive did succeed in gathering enough signatures. Thanks to Michael Morrison for this news.

Brook Thompson, Tennessee Coordinator of Elections for many years, has changed his interpretation of how an independent presidential candidate gets on the ballot. The old interpretation, in effect for many years, required 25 voters to sign eleven different petitions, each petition to nominate a single presidential elector candidate. The new interpretation requires 275 voters to sign a single petition that lists all eleven presidential elector candidates. Thanks to Matt Erard for this news.

Although it continues to be the case that the list of electors must include one person who lives in each Tennessee US House district, the location of the 275 signers is immaterial. They simply must be registered voters anywhere in Tennessee. Any adult may circulate the petition, regardless of whether the circulator is a Tennessee resident or not. The State Elections Division will furnish the blank petition forms. The deadline continues to be August 21.

On May 20, South Dakota state officials conceded that they cannot force exit pollsters to remain at least 100 feet away from polling places. The TV networks had sued South Dakota on May 12, to overturn the Secretary of State’s ruling that exit pollsters must be treated as though they are campaigners. State law in most, if not all states, prevents campaigners from being within 100 feet of any polling place (sometimes the distance is even greater). But other states don’t consider exit pollsters to be campaigners. Probably South Dakota gave in when it realized that courts in other states have always ruled in favor of exit pollsters on this issue.