J. J. McCullough of Vancouver, British Columbia, has created this entertaining 18-minute you tube about the history of U.S. ballots. It has some fresh ideas, especially at the end.
There is one very small factual error. It says every state had started using government-printed ballots by the 1910’s, but actually Georgia didn’t start until 1922, and South Carolina didn’t start until 1950. Thanks to Jack Ross for the link.
Minnesota State Senator Jim Carlson (D-Eagan) has introduced SF 1827, which changes the definition of a qualified party. The current definition is a group that polled at least 5% for any statewide office at either of the last two elections. The bill doubles that to 10%.
Senator Carlson is chair of the Senate Elections Committee.
2023 is turning out to be a very bad year for ballot access in state legislatures. There are bills to make it more severe in Connecticut (a bill for a top-two system), Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire (bills to move the non-presidential primary indirectly make the petition deadlines worse), and New Mexico. There are fears of a bad bill coming in Texas. Bills to make ballot access more difficult have already been defeated this year in Colorado and Wyoming.
The Minnesota definition of a qualified party is already too severe. To illustrate that, note that the Libertarian Party has been ballot-qualified in 43 states, but it has never been qualified in Minnesota. The other such states are Georgia for district office, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia.
The definition of “qualified” is that the party has the same ease of placing nominees on the general election ballot that the Democratic and Republican Parties enjoy. Thanks to Edward T. J. Brown for the news about Minnesota.
The New Hampshire House Election Law Committee will hear HB 363 on February 28, Tuesday, at 11 a.m. This is the bill that moves the declaration of candidacy deadline for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties from June to July. Even presidential candidates must file such a declaration of candidacy. Moving the deadline to July would enhance the ability of candidates to enter the race at the end of spring. The declaration of candidacy requirement for presidential candidates was added in 1985. If it had been in effect earlier, it would have blocked Robert La Follette in 1924 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.
The bill also decouples the petition deadline from the date of the non-presidential primary. The petition deadline is in August now, and the bill wouldn’t change that, but it would guarantee that if the legislature moves the non-presidential primary from September to an earlier month, that would not affect the petition deadline.
On February 22, the Idaho House State Affairs Committee passed HB 138 unanimously. It moves the presidential primary from March to the third Tuesday in May. If the bill becomes law, it would have no effect on petition deadlines for independent candidates or new parties.
As previously reported, New Mexico SB 180 has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, and may receive a Senate vote at any time. It raises the petition for the nominee of a ballot-qualified convention party from 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 2%, for almost all offices, unless the party has about 12,000 registered members.
Please e-mail the Secretary of State at secretary.state@state.nm.us. Be courteous. Tell Maggie Toulouse Oliver that SB 180, an omnibus bill written by her office, should be amended to delete any change in the number of signatures for minor party nominees.
Already, for a US Senate candidate running in 2022, New Mexico required an independent to submit a petition of 2% of the last gubernatorial vote. For the nominee of a new party, two petitions would be required; one signed by .5% of the last gubernatorial vote to qualify the party, and then another petition signed by 1% of the last gubernatorial vote for each of that party’s nominees. No matter whether one considers the independent petition, or the minor party set of petitions, that makes New Mexico one of the most severe states in the nation for ballot access for office other than president (the New Mexico presidential requirements are easier than for other office).
Furthermore, New Mexico is the only state in the nation which requires the nominee of a qualified party to submit a petition to be on the general election ballot. That law is discriminatory because it doesn’t apply to parties that nominate by primary. Also it is not sensible to require two separate petitions. Maryland once had a similar law, but the highest state court invalidated it on the sensible grounds that once a party has attained qualified status, its nominees can be deemed to have support. Maryland Green Party v Maryland State Board of Elections, 832 A 2d 214 (2003).
