Third Party Ballot Access

[Jay778x]

Ron Paul could potentially garner the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party nominations. Both of these parties have ballot access for Presidential candidates in 29 states combined:



Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Louisiana
Maryland
Michigan
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
North Dakota
Oregon
South Carolina
Texas
Vermont
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Connecticut
Nebraska
Utah
Arkansas


How much work/$$ would it take to secure ballot access for one of those parties in the remaining 21 states?

[ashlux]

How much work/$$ would it take to secure ballot access for one of those parties in the remaining 21 states?

A bunch for Oklahoma :-(

Oklahoma has the most restrictive ballot access laws in the US. Around 52k signatures are required for full party ballot access. To be a Presidential candidate, about 37k signatures are required. The Republican and Democratic parties are exempt (by getting enough votes in elections).

For comparison, Texas requires about 45.5k signatures for full party ballot access and about 64k signatures to be a Presidential candidate.

To put that into perspective, the DFW area is roughly TWICE the population of the entire state of Oklahoma!

There was some effort to actually change the required number of signatures to 5000 (the Libertarian Party. Constitutional Party, and Oklahoma Ballot Access Reform group were working together). They needed around 85k signatures and collected 15k.

Ralph Nader and Ross Perot weren't even on Oklahoma's ballots...

Write-ins are also not possible in Oklahoma.

[libertarian4321]

Ron Paul could potentially garner the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party nominations. Both of these parties have ballot access for Presidential candidates in 29 states combined:



Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Louisiana
Maryland
Michigan
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
North Dakota
Oregon
South Carolina
Texas
Vermont
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Connecticut
Nebraska
Utah
Arkansas


How much work/$$ would it take to secure ballot access for one of those parties in the remaining 21 states?

The Libertarian Party is usually on the ballot in all 50 states (or very close- sometimes 48 or 49).

It costs a ton of money for 3rd parties to get on the ballot (just one of the ways the Dems and Reps ensure there will never be competition- make the little guys spend all their meager resources on ballot access and have nothing left to campaign with)- maybe with Ron Paul running, their donations are down.