Votes have all been counted in the California March 5, 2024 primary in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, so it is now possible to know that there is a tie for second place in the U.S. House race, 16th district. No incumbent was running. Nine Democrats and two Republicans appeared on the primary ballot. Democrat Sam Licardo, a county supervisor, placed first with 38,489 votes. Evan Low, an Assemblymember, and Joe Simitian, a former Mayor of San Jose, each got 30,249 votes. They are also both Democrats. So three Democrats will be on the November ballot.

This is the second time the California top-two system has produced a tie for second place, with the result that three candidates qualified for November. The first instance was in 2016, in the 62nd Assembly race, when only a Democrat had appeared on the primary ballot, and two write-in candidates (a Republican and a Libertarian) had been write-in candidates in the primary and each got 32 write-in votes, so all three went into the November election.

In theory, in the current race, one of the candidates could ask for a recount, but that is not expected to happen, because whoever requested the recount would need to spend a lot of money on the recount.

According to this article, a Missouri activist, Jared Young, will attempt to qualify “The Better Party” for the ballot this year. It is a centrist organization.

The Pennsylvania Forward Party is petitioning to place nominees on the November 2024 ballot for Attorney General and Treasurer. If they get on the ballot and meet the vote test, the Forward Party will then meet the definition of a “political party”. The benefits of that are: (1) the party will be a choice on the voter registration forms and the state will tally how many registered voters it has and who they are; (2) in special elections, the party will be on the ballot automatically for its nominees, with no petition needed.

The Forward Party would have been free to put a U.S. Senate nominee on its petition, but chose not to do that.

In Pennsylvania, even groups that meet the definition of “political party” are not automatically on the general election ballot in regularly-scheduled elections unless they have registration membership of 15% of the state total. This law is so severe, if the same law existed in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, the Republican Party would need to petition for all its nominees in the general election. If it were the law in Idaho and Utah, the Democratic Party would need petitions to place all its nominees on the November ballot.