Ballot access is rules and procedures regulating the right to candidacy, the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots in elections in the United States.
The jurisprudence of the right to candidacy and right to create a political party are less clear than voting rights in the United States.Gordon, Nicole A. "The Constitutional Right to Candidacy." U. Kan. L. Rev. 25 (1976): 545. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has established in multiple cases that the federal constitution does not recognize a fundamental right to candidacy, and that state governments have a legitimate government interest in blocking "frivolous or fraudulent candidacies". As election processes are decentralized by Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, ballot access laws are established and enforced by the states. As a result, ballot access processes may vary from one state to another.
State access requirements for candidates generally pertain to personal qualities of a candidate, such as: minimum age, residency, and citizenship. Additionally, many states require prospective candidates to collect a specified number of qualified voters' signatures on petitions of support and mandate the payment of filing fees before granting access; ballot measures are similarly regulated (as is the wording and format of petitions as well). Each state also regulates how political parties qualify for automatic ballot access, and how those minor parties that do not can. Fundamental to democracy, topics related to ballot access are the subject of considerable debate in the United States.
In order to get on the ballot, a candidate, political party, or ballot measure must meet various requirements. The Elections Clause in Article I of the Constitution states that "the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof." Consequently, each state may design its own unique criteria for ballot access. The United States is one of the few nations that do not have uniform national laws on ballot access. Arguments The primary argument put forward by States for restricting ballot access has been the presumption that setting ballot access criteria too low would result in numerous candidates on the ballot, splitting the votes. Example: With plurality voting, as in the case of first-past-the-post, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if the candidate does not have a majority of the votes. Suppose 55% Belief A and 45% Belief B vote in a district. If two candidates appeal to A, but only one appeals to B, the votes of A could split between the two A candidates, say 25% vote for one and 30% for the other, giving the B candidate the office although 55% preferred to see an A candidate in the office. However, proponents of ballot access reform say that reasonably easy access to the ballot does not lead to a glut of candidates, even where many candidates do appear on the ballot. The 1880s reform movement that led to officially designed secret ballots, such as the Australian ballot, had some salutary effects, but it also gave the government control over who could be on the ballot. As historian Peter Argersinger has pointed out, the reform that empowered officials to regulate access onto the ballot, also carried the danger that this power would be abused by officialdom and that legislatures controlled by established political parties, would enact restrictive ballot access laws to ensure re-election of their party's candidates.
Perhaps the most prominent advocate of the 1880s ballot reform movement, John Henry Wigmore, suggested that "ten signatures" might be an appropriate requirement for nomination to the official ballot for a legislative office. In the 20th century, ballot access laws imposing signature requirements far more restrictive than Wigmore had envisioned were enacted by many state legislatures; in many cases, the two major parties wrote the laws such that the burdens created by these new ballot access requirements (usually in the form of difficult signature-gathering nominating petition drives) fell on alternative candidates, but not on major party candidates. Proponents of more open ballot access argue that restricting ballot access has the effect of unjustly restricting the choices available to voters, and typically disadvantages third party candidates and other candidates who are not affiliated with the established parties.
President George H. W. Bush signed the Copenhagen Document of the Helsinki Accords that states in part:
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has criticized the United States for its ballot access laws. In 1996, United States delegates responded to the criticism by saying that unfair ballot access "could be remedied through existing appeal and regulatory structures and did not represent a breach of the Copenhagen commitments.""U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Fusion", Ballot Access News, 5 May 1997. Retrieved 22 September 2008 The OSCE published a report on the 2004 United States election, which among other things, noted restrictive ballot access laws."OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report on the 2 November 2004 elections in the United States", OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, 31 March 2005. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
Ballot access laws by state
Ballot access laws in the United States vary widely from state to state: Alabama: Although not required to, major party candidates are nominated by the state primary process. Independent candidates are granted ballot access through a petition process and minor political party candidates are nominated by convention along with a petition process; one must collect 3% of the total votes cast in the last election for the specific race or 3% of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election for statewide ballot access. The figure for 2016 and 2018 statewide ballot access is 35,412 valid signatures. Be aware that the validity of signatures generally means that 20–30% more signatures will need to be collected to ensure that the goal is achieved. To retain ballot access in the following election, a party has to poll 20% in a statewide race.
Arizona: To gain ballot access, a new political party must gather signatures on a county–by–county basis, achieving over 20,000 valid signatures (i.e. from registered voters). Once this has been achieved the party must run a candidate for Governor or President who garners at least 5% of the vote to maintain ballot access for an additional two years, maintain at least 1% of registered voters registered with their party, or gather approximately the same number of signatures again every two years. The Democratic, Libertarian, and Republican parties have ballot access by voter registrations. In 2008, the Arizona Green Party gathered enough signatures to gain ballot access.Mary Jo Pitzl, ""Green Party wins ballot status", The Arizona Republic, 20 April 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2008 California: Any office, all electionsPer section 5100 of the California Election Code, ballot access requires one of two conditions to be met:If at the last preceding gubernatorial election there was polled for any one of the party's candidates for any office voted on throughout the state, at least 2 percent of the entire vote of the state;If on or before the 135th day before any primary election, it appears to the Secretary of State, as a result of examining and totaling the statement of voters and their political affiliations transmitted to him or her by the county elections officials, that voters equal in number to at least 1 percent of the entire vote of the state at the last preceding gubernatorial election have declared their intention to affiliate with that party. Governor, primary elections Under legislation signed into law in 2019, candidates for Governor of California must publicly release personal tax returns for the previous five years in order to be listed on the primary election ballot in that state; write-in candidates are exempt from this requirement. As initially enacted, the law also applied to candidates for President of the United States; this provision was later held to be unconstitutional by the courts. Colorado allows candidates to be placed on the ballot either through political party assemblies, or by collecting the required number of valid signatures as specified in Colorado Revised Statutes 1-4-801 and 1-4-802 for major- and minor-party candidates respectively. The major parties are parties whose gubernatorial candidates received at least 10% of the vote in the most recent general election. The relevant county, state house, state senate, judicial district, congressional district, and state assembly place all the candidates who receive 30% or more of the assembly vote on the primary ballot; a candidate who receives less than 10% of an assembly vote is ineligible to try the signature route for the same primary ballot. Candidates may choose to bypass the assembly route altogether in favor of collecting signatures. The required number of valid signatures per congressional district for statewide candidates ranges from 500 for State Board of Education and University of Colorado Regent to 1,500 for governor and US Senate. For other offices, the signature requirement is based on the lesser of a specified number of signatures and a specified percentage of the vote for that seat in the previous election – the primary if one was held for the major party and the general election otherwise and for minor-party candidates. Georgia In 2016 Georgia required a third-party presidential candidate to produce 7,500 signatures of registered voters to gain ballot access. The 7,500 number was imposed by Federal District Court Judge Richard Story in a March 17, 2016, ruling against the state that their requirement of signatures equaling at least 1% of the total number of registered and eligible voters in the most recent presidential election was an unconstitutionally high barrier. The number would have been about 50,334. On April 13, 2016, the Georgia secretary of state appealed the decision without seeking a stay until the state legislature acts to change the requirement."Georgia to fight ruling that lowers bar for third-party-presidentialcandidates" 2016-04-14 Reason magazine reported in October 2022 that the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear a case that would have challenged the ballot access laws of Georgia, which were reported as some of the most onerous in the nation that have kept any third party off the ballot for nearly sixty years from 2022 prior: Illinois: The threshold barrier to ballot access in Illinois is collecting an adequate number of voters' signatures on nominating petitions. Illinois distinguishes between "Established Parties" (i.e., the Democratic Party and Republican Party, although other parties may achieve Established Party status on a county-by-county basis), "New Parties", and Independent Candidates. The signature requirements are lower for Established Parties than New Parties or Independent Candidates. The petitions must be circulated no more than 90 days prior to the filing deadline. Candidates in Illinois must also file a notarized Statement of Candidacy and, for non-federal offices, a Statement of Economic Interests. Candidates may also, but are not legally required to, submit a Code of Fair Campaign Practices pledge and a Loyalty Oath. The Loyalty Oath requirement was ruled unconstitutional in 1972.