The United States currently has only three minor parties that regularly appear on ballots in states containing a majority of electoral votes, in presidential elections. Those three are the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties. Interestingly, the three parties are in virtually exactly the same position today as they were exactly four years ago, relative to ballot status.

For years ago, Libertarians were on in 26 states, Greens were on in 20 states, and the Constitution Party was on in 10 states. Currently, Libertarians are again on in 26 states, Greens are again on in 20 states, and the Constitution Party is now on in 14 states, an improvement.

None of the three parties has completed any petition drives in an entire year. However, Libertarians are over halfway done in Arkansas, Nebraska, North Carolina and Utah. Greens are over halfway done in Arkansas. The Constitution Party is mostly done in Missouri and South Dakota.

On September 6, California elections officials announced that an initiative to revise legislative term limits had qualified for the February 2008 ballot. The margin was extraordinarily close. The initiative requires 763,790 signatures, and the random sample showed that it has 764,747 valid signatures. The initiative, if it passes, will allow many incumbent state legislators to file for re-election in the June non-presidential primary.

UPDATE: the actual legal requirement is 694,354 valid signatures. The post above is misleading. The number 763,790 is actually the number needed to avoid checking all the signatures, instead of depending on the random sample. If the random sample shows a petition has 110% of the legal requirement, then elections officials can deem it to be OK, and don’t need to check all the signatures. If California elections officials had needed to check all the signatures, the initiative would not have been on the February 2008 ballot. Instead, it would have been on the June 2008 ballot, too late to help the incumbent legislators who are term-limited out and desire to run for new terms, which they can do if the initiative passes in February.

On August 30, the California legislature gave final approval to SB 439, and sent it to the Governor. It legalizes write-ins in which the voter forgets to “X” the box next to the name written in. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2006.