Minor Parties in US House Elections: An Examination of the Influence of Ballot Access Laws and Other State Level Variables

Abstract

Despite the persistent presence of minor parties in the US, little research has been done on the factors that influence why minor party candidates are more apt to run in some states relative to others, and why they tend to be more successful in some states. This study will examine minor party candidates in US House of Representatives elections in the 2000s. There is considerable variation in the success of minor party candidates in US House races within states, both in terms of the proportion of races with minor party candidates and the percent of the vote those candidates receive. The most common explanation for this variation has been the different ballot access laws found in each state, where some states grant relatively easy access to the ballot while others place significant obstacles in the way of minor parties. This explanation, however, has largely been untested due to the lack of a measure of the stringency of ballot access laws across the states. Using an index that measures the stringency of each state’s ballot access laws, this study examines the influence those laws have on both the proportion of US House races in each state with minor party candidates and the relative electoral success of those candidates. The index used was created by the author for this project and is one of many independent variables included in the OLS models. US House elections from 2002 – 2008 are examined across forty-seven states.