OpEd News ran this story on March 22 about the Green presidential nomination. It features Kent Mesplay, who says he is serious about defeating Cynthia McKinney for the nomination.
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Missouri has 9 U.S. House districts. Filing closed recently for Missouri primaries. The state has 3 ballot-qualified parties, each of which nominates by primary. This year Democrats will have a nominee in all 9 districts, Republicans will have a nominee in 8 districts, and Libertarians will have a nominee in 7 districts.
In 2006, all three of those parties had nominees in all districts.
New parties in Missouri still have plenty of time to petition their way onto the ballot. The Constitution Party has already finished its petition, but hasn’t handed it in yet, until it finishes recruiting candidates. Independents are also free to file in late July.
Filing has closed for candidates to put themselves on California primary ballots. The primary is June 3. California has 53 U.S. House districts.
All six qualified parties in California will have fewer nominees for U.S. House in 2008 than they did in 2006, except that the Republican Party has the same number in both years. Below is the number of districts in which each party will have a nominee, in 2008; the 2006 number is in parantheses.
Democratic: 51 (52)
Republican: 46 (46)
Libertarian: 20 (25)
Green: 5 (7)
Peace & Freedom: 5 (8)
Constitution: 1 (2)
In theory, the parties could gain nominees by write-ins at the primary, but the law requires a write-in candidate in a partisan primary to poll a large number of votes, in order to be deemed nominated. Even the major parties have trouble with that requirement; no Republican or Democratic was able to gain a write-in nomination in 2006 for U.S. House.
This column by Benjamin Lukoff suggests that Washington voters, when faced with the restrictive choices on the November ballot caused by the recently revived “Top-Two” Primary system, may now be attracted to abolishing the primary in favor of Instant-Runoff Voting in November. Thanks to Steve Rankin for the link.
This column by Benjamin Lukoff suggests that Washington voters, when faced with the restrictive choices on the November ballot caused by the recently revived “Top-Two” Primary system, may now be attracted to abolishing the primary in favor of Instant-Runoff Voting in November. Thanks to Steve Rankin for the link.