It is possible to predict that 2008 will be another presidential election in which only six general election presidential candidates will theoretically be able to be elected.

It is quite likely that the presidential nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties, as well as independent candidate Ralph Nader, will be the only presidential candidates on the ballot in states containing a majority of the electoral vote. This will be a repeat of the situation in 2004.

The July 1, 2007 Ballot Access News paper issue listed such presidential candidates from all presidential elections 1856 through 2004. The number of electable presidential candidates has varied between two and seven, in all those elections.

RocktheDebates was founded to work for at least one general election presidential debate in which all the candidates who could potentially be elected, are invited. The fact that there almost surely will be six such candidates in 2008 should give renewed strength for the RocktheDebates goal. This year, if the Commission on Presidential Debates again claims that the 15% poll rule must be enforced or there would be “hundreds” of candidates on the stage, let that claim be countered with the facts. Also remember the large number of Democratic and Republican presidential debates held this season which were quite successful, even though there were often 6, 7, 8 or 9 candidates in those debates.

On March 28, the Washington Republican Party asked the U.S. District Court that first heard the case against the “top-two” system, to let the party file an amended complaint in that same case.

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 had ruled that the “top-two” system does not violate the associational rights of political parties on its face, but had left the door open to new lawsuits against the system on other grounds, and also left the door open to a renewal of the associational argument “as applied.”

The Republican Party seeks to revise its original complaint, to make two new points: (1) the advertising in favor of the “Top-Two” initiative was false; (2) that in practice, the system will confuse voters into thinking that candidates listed on the ballot as preferring the Republican Party are actually representing the Republican Party.

The first point depends on the fact that the Washington Supreme Court recently invalidated another initiative that had passed, on the grounds that the advertising for it was false and misleading.

The amended Republican Party complaint about false advertising for the initiative specifically targets the pro-“top-two” advertising that claimed that the initiative would not affect the ability of minor parties to place nominees on the November ballot. There was a great deal of confusion about this during the campaign for “top-two” in 2004. In fact, even the text of the initiative itself contradicted itself on this point. Thanks to Richard Shepard for this news.

This year, 30 states have held presidential primaries (counting D.C. as a state). As noted in an earlier post, the cumulative vote totals for the leading major party presidential candidates are: Hillary Clinton 13,920,268; Barack Obama 13,855,412; John McCain 7,613,865.

Although 12 more presidential primaries are yet to occur, one can imagine that McCain’s vote total will never catch up to the vote totals for the two leading Democrats. If the U.S. used the “top-two” system that Washington state will be using this year, the general election would be between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; no one else would be allowed on the November ballot.

The 12 presential primaries that lie in the future are: Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Not all of those primaries will choose delegates.