With this being the quadrennial election season in Maryland, most people’s attention turns to the races for the governor’s chair, control of each legislative body, and the two other statewide offices of Attorney General and Comptroller. What attracts much less fanfare is the effort for those parties who are considered to be minor parties to remain in good standing for another four years. At present, Maryland has four minor parties; the Constitution Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Populist Party. State election law (obviously set by the Democrats and Republicans) mandates that they have three possible routes to retain their status for the 2007-2010 election cycle:
* A statewide candidate needs to poll 1% or more of the vote in a Maryland general election, or;
* The party must have 1% or more of registered voters. If they have neither condition at the end of this election cycle, then;
* The party must petition its way back to status by submitting 10,000 valid signatures to the Board of Elections.
Judging by the history of these four parties, the prospects of continuing unabated through to the next election cycle are spotty at best – the Constitution Party in its various incarnations has been on and off the party rolls five times in ten years, and the Libertarians have lost status once in seven years. Only the Green Party has gone uninterrupted through an election cycle. (The Populists are in their very first cycle.) In the 2002 general election, only the Greens and Libertarians fielded candidates for state offices according to the Board of Elections website. Green Party candidates were in six contests, with three being write-in candidates who got little support (less than 1/4% of the vote, including a Comptroller candidate.) In three races where they were on the ballot for various House of Delegates seats, the Greens got between 2 and 14% of the vote. Meanwhile, there were two Libertarians running, one for governor and one for Congress. The governor candidate finished short of the 1% required by polling 0.68% (11,546 votes) while the Congressional officeseeker did better with just over 2.5% of the tally.
So how are prospects for 2006? Certainly they are better for some parties than others. While each of the four parties has candidates running for various offices, the number varies greatly. The Constitution Party has just two officeseekers running, both for House of Delegates seats. Meanwhile, the Populist Party also has two people on the ballot, but one is running for governor and looking to at least eclipse the magic 1% threshold. The other Populist is running for the House of Delegates. As for the Libertarian slate, it has four on it, but only two in state races and one of those is a technically non-partisan judge race. The other is running for Ben Cardin’s former Congressional seat. Libertarians also are on the ballot in Dorchester and Howard County races.
By far, the most successful minor party as far as candidate recruiting is the Green Party, which has 20 on the ballots for various state races – governor, 3 for U.S. Congress, 1 for State Senate, a judicial candidate, and ten folks running for House of Delegates seats, including a full slate of three in House of Delegates District 43. Plus they have 3 running in local jurisdictions as Greens. This doesn’t include U.S. Senate hopeful Kevin Zeese, who’s been crossendorsed by three of the four minor parties (all but the Constitution Party.)
The item I ran across awhile back that piqued my interest for writing this post was a note I got from the Libertarians because I’m on their mailing list. In it, they were worried about once again losing their status as a party in Maryland as their petition drive was sputtering. So I asked representatives from three of the four parties how their petition drives were going. I didn’t get reaction from the Constitution Party because they have just revamped their website and I couldn’t find an e-mail address of their state chair.
Chris Driscoll of the Populist Party wasn’t worried about the petition yet, sounding fairly positive about meeting the 1 percent threshold in the gubernatorial election (Driscoll is the Populist Party candidate.) He stated that their Central Committee decided early on to devote full attention to their candidates, and only after the November election would they work on the petition drive if needed.
Also sounding quite positive about her party’s chances to stay for another cycle was Patsy Allen of the Green Party, who noted that their petition drive was “very close” to the 10,000 they needed as of last Sunday (before the primary) and now was seeking the extra 4,000 or so as padding in case some signatures were ruled invalid. Allen stated that she herself had collected another 170 on primary Tuesday and that many others were soliciting signatures on primary day as well. (I’m sure the Lamone administration at the Maryland Board of Elections goes through Green Party submittals with a fine-toothed comb.)
However, Bob Johnston of the Libertarians was more glum, speculating that the party was “less than halfway” to their 10,000 signature mark, even with petitions gathered on primary day. While the Libertarians nationally have been around for a long while (since the early 1970’s) they haven’t found a lot of success as members get pulled out from both the left and right – parts of their message have been co-opted by both the liberal and conservative fringes. In Maryland, their slice of the left wing pie is being cut into by both the Greens and Populists.
I also found out in my research that the Reform Party, once a viable party in Maryland, lost its status after the last cycle and hasn’t yet regained it (and likely won’t.) It might be that come the next election cycle in 2007, we may be down to four or even just three parties again in Maryland as the other parties will have to restart the long process to revive themselves.
In looking at the most recent voter registration totals, none of the parties come anywhere close to the 1% threshold. With 3,105,236 registered voters in Maryland as of August 31, a party would need to have 31,053 registered voters and the highest total of the four minor parties is the Green Party with 8,023. The Libertarians place second with 4,059, there’s 495 registered Constitution Party members and Populists number just 90. These totals are dwarfed by even the number of unaffiliated voters – they have 14% of the total with 433,286 voters.
This led me to an interesting request. Even though I’m a member of the Republican Party, I’d like to see more voices on the political scene because it adds more to the battle of ideas that politics is at its root.
If you are one of those unaffiliated voters and it’s because you don’t feel strongly enough in either major party to vote straight ticket, a good idea might be to join these minor parties just to pump up their numbers and keep them on the ballot. You can always switch if a party that suits you better comes along!
Those of you who inhabit the left side of the political spectrum have three choices at the moment as I’m sure the Populists, Greens, and Libertarians would welcome new members; meanwhile, those to the right could perhaps find a home as a Libertarian or probably be more suited to the Constitution Party’s point of view. If just 10% of the unaffiliated people decided to join one “minor” party, that group would be insured ballot access perpetually, or at least until the two main parties changed the rules of the game. And you’d most likely still get to blow off primary elections like you do now.
In turn, getting these “minor” parties more permanent access could encourage more to form, like NYC blogger (“Suitably Flip“, a blog I link to) Philip Pidot’s Growth Party or another bellweather New York state party, the Conservative Party. And I believe putting more choices before voters would do more to increase turnout than all the early voting in the world. It doesn’t matter how many days you can vote if the choice is between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In the Wicomico County GOP primary, turnout was pretty high because of a four-person race for Sheriff and a spirited three-way race for County Executive, as well as a five-person House of Delegates scrum in parts of the county. Meanwhile, Democrats had less to choose from and their lower turnout reflected this.
This is a time where I’m certainly placing principles above party. While strengthening the Green, Populist, and Libertarian parties would be a threat to the entrenched Democrats, a stronger Constitution Party would pull voters out of the Republican column. But my feeling is that the larger pool of interest would make up for the diminished market share of both Republicans and Democrats. Above all, I want people to be satisfied that they have a say in their affairs, and, with just two choices given by the major parties, a large segment of the population isn’t satisfied so they stay home on Election Day. Place more people inside the political process as candidates and you’ll find a more satisfied electorate.
