On January 15, the Brennan Center posted a useful and interesting essay on dates by which independent voters must have changed their registration, in order to vote in 2008 presidential primaries. Of course, the article only deals with states in which presidential primaries are limited to registered party members.

Among the states that hold presidential primaries on February 5, these states provide that any voter can vote in any party’s primary: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah.

Among the February 5 primary states, these states let independents choose any primary: Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey (Illinois doesn’t have party registration, but records are kept of which primary a voter voted in at the previous primary). However, in these states, party members must stick to their own party.

Among the February 5 primary states, these states only let party members vote in primaries: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Oklahoma.

In California, independents may vote in the Democratic primary if they ask (at the polls, no one will volunteer the information), but they may not vote in the Republican primary.

This post only covers primary states, not caucus states. States that are holding caucuses on February 5 are Alaska, Colorado, Idaho Democrats, Kansas Democrats, Minnesota, New Mexico Democrats, North Dakota. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link to the Brennan Center article.

The Sun-Herald newspaper of southwest Florida has this January 28 story about the fact that Florida has 30 qualified parties. A party can be ballot-qualified in Florida just by writing a letter to the Secretary of State, listing its state officers.

The reason Florida doesn’t have a crowded general election ballot for president is that a party can’t automatically qualify a presidential nominee for the November ballot unless it is on the ballot in at least one other state, and unless it produces a list of 27 presidential elector candidates who are registered members of the party. Although this requirement isn’t that difficult, most of the qualified parties of Florida are so insubstantial, they can’t even do that.

The reason Florida doesn’t have a crowded general election ballot for office other than president is that it charges non-presidential candidates a very high filing fee (6% of the office’s annual salary, which means approximately $9,000 for Congress).

On January 27, the Minnesota Independence Party, which has been ballot-qualified since 1994, voted to affiliate itself with the new Independence Party of America. The Minnesota party’s webpage already mentions this step. Thanks to ThirdPartyWatch for this news.