re: #117 Dr Lizardo

I confess I’m not that familiar with the various state “third party” rules. Could you elaborate or point me in the right direction on that issue?

I’ll summarize (well, as much as longwinded me summarizes anything).

There was a bit of a crisis back when Perot got such a huge showing against Bush and Clinton. One part of this was the realization that the money involved in elections basically split between two parties. Two simultaneous efforts began. First, the people who really wanted third parties moved to make sure they could get some of that. Second, the guardians of status quo worked to make sure the two parties kept the whole.

The rough compromise (which varies from state to state) is that the money is split between “major” and “minor” parties. There are two thresholds: one to reach “minor” and another to reach “major”. The basic reality is that as long as there are two majors, the only way to be a minor is if pretty much all “other” votes go to the same third party. ON the flip side, it’s possible for one of the majors to become a minor, at which point money could get seriously spread around.

The threshold test tends to be performance in either the previous governor or presidential election - another reason why those are such a focus.

Bottom line: if the GOP were to pull less than 35% (more or less) of the total vote it could suddenly find itself getting a lot less of the “election support” dollars provided in the various states.