Ballot Access Laws and the Decline of American Third-Parties

Abstract

Party and legal scholars often argue that ballot access requirements and other state-level election laws are primary reasons that third-parties have declined in importance in the United States. According to this argument, as ballot access laws got more difficult over the twentieth century, fewer minor parties were able to run, and those that overcame these onerous restrictions had few resources left to run effective campaigns. We traced the ballot access laws of each state from the enactment of the Australian ballot to the present and analyzed their impact on elections to the House of Representatives from 1890 to 2010. We found that while these laws got more difficult over the twentieth century, they had little impact on the electoral fortunes of third-parties. We conclude that these state election laws did not cause the dramatic decline of third-parties over the past 100 years.