Source: Ballot Access News

See this interesting article at Fairvote, about a letter written by former President James Madison in 1823, suggesting a different way to choose the president. The article has a link to Madison’s letter. Madison wanted to give each congressional district one electoral vote. Also he wanted to end the system under which, when no one gets a majority of the electoral college vote, the House elects the President, with one vote per state. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

On June 18, Massachusetts Representative Dan Winslow (R-Norfolk) said he will introduce a bill in 2013 to let unqualified parties have flexibility to choose their presidential and vice-presidential nominees in the late spring or summer of election years. This bill has yet to be fleshed out. It might permit an unqualified party to circulate a petition to qualify itself, without the need to list any candidates to be listed on the petition. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

On June 18, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued an opinion in Libertarian Association of Massachusetts v Secretary of the Commonwealth, 2011-348. The unanimous ruling says that Massachusetts law does not permit an unqualified party, or an independent candidate, to engage in substitution. If a candidate for president, or vice-president, or even presidential elector, who was named on the petition, dies or Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

This poll shows that Angus King is overwhelmingly ahead in the U.S. Senate race in Maine this year. King is an independent candidate. No independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Maine has ever before received as much as 10% of the vote. Assuming King is elected, and assuming Bernie Sanders is re-elected in Vermont as an independent this year, that will make five instances in which someone who was not the Democratic or Read more »

Source: Independent Political Report

New York’s Conservative Party celebrated its 50th anniversary Wednesday, June 13th.

Brothers-in-law J. Daniel Mahoney and Kieran O’Doherty founded the party in 1962 to counter liberal Nelson Rockefeller’s domination of the state’s Republican organization. It proceeded to do so — and then some.

After the 1964 Goldwater debacle, the Conservative Party’s success showed that Read more »

Source: Independent Political Report

Wes Riddle, a Constitution Party supporter running in the Republican party has the support of the Tea Party and is going to be in a runoff with Roger Williams in Congressional District 25 of Texas.

A year ago, Riddle invited Facebook friends to his Belton theater for a rally promoting the Constitution Party, a third party that calls for restoring government “on the Gospel of Read more »

Source: Stillwater Gazette (via Independent Political Report)

Independence Party of Minnesota (IP) Chairman Mark Jenkins looks to state legislative races as “winnable objectives” for his party.

“The attitude has been favorable for many, many years,” Jenkins said of voters choosing third-party candidates.

Republicans and Democrats, through their narrow politics and squabbling, have created Read more »

Source: Independence Party of Minnesota (from May 29)

The campaign of House District 35A candidate Justin Boals officially launched with a kickoff party on Sunday, May 20 at Billy’s Bar and Grill in downtown Anoka.

Boals, 37, is a registered pharmacy technician and first-time candidate for political office who resides in Anoka with his wife and two-year old son. Boals recently received the endorsement of the Independence Party Congressional District 6. Read more »

Source: Real Clear Politics

A surprise may be lurking in the presidential campaign that could cause a stir in the coming months, but it has nothing to do with Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.

Gary Johnson, the former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico who ran briefly in this cycle’s GOP presidential primary, is the Libertarian Party’s standard-bearer, and he is finally getting some attention. In the past few weeks he’s appeared on NBC’s “The Daily Read more »

Source: Independent Political Report

I wanted to pass on some reaction to Rand Paul’s endorsement of Romney, but instead of making each one a separate post, I’ll just post several links below.

Here is Dylan Hales’ take on the Rand Paul endorsemnet of Romney from The American Conservative blog.

Speaking personally, my biggest issue with the endorsement was the ”how.” I had Read more »