The Deseret News has this lengthy story about the Forward Party.
It is odd that the story says the Forward Party is trying to get on the ballot in Texas, because petitioning in Texas to put a new party on the bvallot can’t take place in odd years. The Forward Party petition can not be circulated until after the March 2024 primary.
My blog post that said the Libertarian Party won four partisan elections on November 8, 2022, was incomplete. There were also six partisan wins in Indiana.
The only contested win was for Town Council of Ossian, a town of 3,300 people in Wells County. Two were to be elected, and four candidates ran. The Libertarian, Stephanie Tucker, received 539 votes. Two Republicans ran, receiving 622 votes and 487 votes. A Democrat ran, receiving 189 votes. So one Republican and the Libertarian were elected.
Another Indiana contested race ended in a tie. The Libertarian, Carrie Atkins, ran for Pleasant Run Townhip Advisory Board. Voters were electing three candidates. Three Republicans ran, receiving 340, 210, and 171 votes. Atkins also received 171 votes. Pleasant Run Township is in Lawrence County. The other board members will break the tie, so Atkins is not likely to be chosen.
The races won by Libertarians without opposition were: Cheryl Heacox, Clay Township Board, Wayne County; Tom Kneuven and Dean Hartley, Franklin Township Board, Montgomery County (three were to be elected and the third seat was won by independent candidate Brian Bechtel); Stephen Coffman, Liberty Township Trustee, Henry County; and Terry Coffman, Liberty Township Board, Henry County.
On November 8, U.S. District Court Judge M. Casey Rodgers, a Bush Jr. appointee, struck down a Florida law making it a crime for a candidate for non-partisan office to “campaign” based on party affiliation. The plaintiff, a candidate for School Board, had been fined for saying he was a “lifelong Republican.” Hetherington v Madden, n.d., 3:21cv-671. Here is the 31-page opinion. Thanks to the Institute for Free Speech for the news.
Usually ranked choice voting boosts the vote for minor party candidates. That was true in Maine in both 2020 and 2022. But in Alaska in 2022, it didn’t seem to help minor parties.
The only minor party candidate for a statewide office who survived the top-four primary was Chris Bye, Libertarian for U.S. House. He had placed fifth in the primary, and thus did not originally qualify for the November ballot. But when one of the candidates who had qualified dropped out, Bye advanced. However, in the general election, he got 1.73% of the first choice votes.
In the past, Libertarians running for U.S. House in Alaska have recently done far better than that. These are the percentages for the Libertarian for U.S. House in all past Alaska elections: 2000 1.76%; 2002 1.67%; 2004 2.39%; 2006 1.72%; 2012 5.20%; 2014 7.65%; 2016 10.35%. In all these instances, both major parties had a candidate.
The Alaskan Independence Party candidates for statewide offices were all kept off the general election ballot, due to failing to place high enough in the primary. They had tried in the gubernatorial race and the U.S. Senate race. Libertarians were also kept off the ballot in all the statewide races other than U.S. House.
In the legislative races, there were no races with more than four candidates filing for the primary, so the top-four system didn’t have any restrictive effect. In the general election for legislature, when ranked choice voting was in existence, there was no legislative race with a minor party candidate in which the winner received less than 50% with first place votes, so no second choice votes were counted.
At the November 8 election, Alaska Independence Party member Tyler Ivanoff received 48.17% of the vote in a two-person race. His opponent, Neal Foster, is a Democrat and the incumbent. See this story about the race. It reveals that when Ivanoff filed for office, he intended to file as an independent candidate, but mistakenly registered as a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, so his label was AIP.
