And that L too. Richard Winger at the outstanding Ballot Access News reports:
Last year, the Iowa Libertarian and Green Parties sued Iowa in federal court, against Iowa regulations that only let voters register into qualified parties, or as independents. Iowa has been one of only two states that doesn’t print a blank line on the 'political party' question on voter registration forms. Iowa prints a checkbox for each qualified party and a checkbox for independent (sic-it actually says "No Party"), but there is no way to register into an unqualified party. Iowa currently recognizes only the Democratic and Republican Parties.
The state has said it wants to settle the lawsuit, and has offered to let any group be named as a choice on the voter registration form if it had statewide nominees on the ballot in the last election, and if it submits a petition signed by 50 people who say they are members of that party. There would still be no blank line.
Unqualified parties appearing on the Iowa ballot this year are Green, Libertarian and Socialist Workers.
YARRRRRR! What about the Pirate Parrrty, ye scurvy dogs? (James Hill's site isn't working... UPDATE: Guess it is now; here's his self-written post-mortem)
If the settlement is finalized, they would each have the option to submit the 50-signature petition and then be listed on voter registration forms. However, the Socialist Workers Party has never been interested in encouraging its members to register publicly as members, and is unlikely to take advantage of the proposal.
It is rare for a state to print the name of an unqualified party on voter registration forms. The only other state that does so is Utah (which prints the name of every party that has been qualified at any time in the last 20 years).
I've seen nothing, nothing, nothing on this in the Iowa press or blogosphere, and I'm surprised Barth and Litten didn't bring it up in the campaign. Or maybe they did and no one noticed.
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