A measure significantly increasing the number of signatures of registered voters required for minor parties to get on the ballot cleared the Senate 27-7 Wednesday.
Senate Bill 163 by Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, goes to the House.
State law requires minor political parties to petition before their candidates can get on the ballot. The parties must turn in 10,000 valid signatures of registered voters to the secretary of state's office ahead of the filing period. Libertarian candidates have been able to get on ballots in each of the past four election cycles.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
SB163 would increase that threshold to 3 percent of total votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. That would be about 26,745 signatures based on the turnout in the 2018 general election, Garner told a Senate committee Tuesday.
"This is what the requirement we had from 1977 until 2006 [was] and, by the way, this is only dealing with political parties and not candidates," Garner said.
According to Arkansas Code Annotated 7-7-205, a "new" party is one that hasn't achieved party status. To achieve that status, a party's nominee must receive at least 3 percent of the vote on the most recent gubernatorial or presidential ticket. The Libertarian Party's 2018 nominee for governor, Mark West of Batesville, fell 861 votes short.
-- Michael R. Wickline