I didn't get a response when I raised this question in a thread yesterday, so I'll raise it again, because I am THAT curious. On my ballot in the state of Alabama there were 5 candidates for president: BO, MR, Johnson, Stein, and Goode. The first two had their part affiliation listed under their name; for the other 3 it just said "Independent". That is, the ballot didn't identify who was the Libertarian candidate, the Green Party candidate.

I think this was unfair to the "independents". As I am not particularly impressed by the knowledge of some voters, I think some folks go into the booth and know only the party they want to vote for. Those people could pick the right candidate if they were voting for a Dem or a Repub, but not if they wanted to vote for a 3rd party candidate. Granted, they're pretty stupid if they don't know the name of the candidate they want to vote for, but a stupid vote counts the same as an informed vote. But I'm not really interested in debating the fairness of this, I just want to know IS THAT THE WAY THE 3RD PARTY CANDIDATES WERE SHOWN ON THE BALLOT IN YOUR STATE?

Well, they might as well have been labelled IND. Here in FL, there were party abbreviations like, LIB, GRE, OBJ, CPF, REF, PSL, JPF, etc. It was letter soup.

Oh, and down here, the use NPA in lieu of IND.

Party was shown in Virginia:  http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/e...28thenglish.pdf

Personally, while I don't feel strongly about the issue, I don't think listing party affiliation is particularly helpful.  I'd almost be inclined to go the other way and remove party identification entirely.  Either take the time to learn about the candidates or don't vote.  Listing party affiliation is how we end up with 700,000 people voting for that imbecile Mark Clayton.

In California, all candiates above city office have "Party Preference" on the ballot. Additionally, you can do a write-in for any office. Mickey Mouse normally wins the write-in ballets, although "none of the above" comes in close.

Tennessee listed the parties of the candidates quite explicitly.