Florida and Colorado are revolutionary states. Both states are allowing over ten third party candidates to contest the Presidential elections giving them the best third party candidate access in nation. Ballot Access News had an interesting post that had information about Florida’s election ballot and how it fits into the larger picture of ballot access laws in the US. Check out his post, “Picture of Page One of Florida November 2012 Ballot“, that you can check out below. There is also a link that has a pdf of most of page one of the Florida Ballot from November 2012 from Palm Beach County, Florida. Take a look:
Florida has 12 presidential candidates on its ballot, the second-highest number of any state this year. Colorado has the most, sixteen. Nevertheless, the presidential part of this Florida ballot is very clear and easy to read. The only flaw is that Palm Beach County, like many other Florida counties, abbreviates the names of political parties to only three letters instead of printing the whole name of the party.
The order of the presidential candidates is determined this way: for parties that have at least 5% of the registration, the party that got the most votes for Governor in the last election is listed first, and the other such parties in order of gubernatorial vote. For parties with registration under 5%, candidates are listed in the order of filing their presidential electors. The Objectivist Party has the third spot on the ballot for President. Thanks to Steve Kolbert for the link.
It is interesting to note that Colorado and Florida have so many candidates for President on their ballots. It goes to show that it is not an impossible feat to include at least the top candidates from outside the two-party system on all ballots across the country. Check out Democracy Chronicles Third Party Central as well. Here is an image of the ballot that caused the famous Florida election fiasco in the 2000 Presidential elections:
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