Most people might already know that anyone who is eligible to serve in the office being sought can avoid having to become a Republican or Democrat just for the sake of having ballot access in November. Such candidates declare their intent to Secretary of State Scanlan’s office during filing time.
While ordinary candidates are working on their primary campaigns (or not), these other candidates are working on qualifying for ballot access by collecting qualified signatures on their petitions. In 2026, 12 rep candidates (out of 20) have qualified for ballot access this way, but let’s look at the top of the ballot and then the middle, which is the object of this article.
All of NH elects a Governor and a US senator, and 3000 signatures are needed to get on the November ballot in what I will call the “nontraditional way.” Mr. Villee is running for governor as a Libertarian, and I have yet to learn much about him, but I know I’m not the only Kelly Ayotte critic who finds Warmington even more unacceptable than her, so it’s time to take a closer look at Villee.
Edmond Laplante, who will get my vote for US Senator, mentioned in a statement that his 3000 signatures had an extra requirement over Mr. Villee’s. They must be divided equally by congressional district, so that’s 1500 apiece. That said, it only makes sense that congressional hopefuls seeking ballot access this way must obtain 1500 signatures from within the district. Fair enough. The numbers make sense so far, but let’s look further down the ballot.
Using 3000 as the whole-state benchmark and seeing 1500 as half of that, what I will call the “petition burden ratio” is the same for a seat that represents half the state. Unfortunately, this ratio changes, much to my unpleasant discovery shortly after the primary. More on that in a moment. First, I want to share what inspired me to look into this.
When Ruth Ward announced her retirement, the GOP inner-circle elite gave CFR Creighton the blessing for his impending promotion from the House to the Senate. I call him “CFR Creighton” instead of “Rep. Creighton” because he’s a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, in other words, a globalist.
I learned that long after I already knew he’s an Enemy of 91A. At filing time, Mr. Wilkinson filed his declaration of intent, and I had assumed that he would turn in a petition with the required number of qualified District 8 signatures. He didn’t. I don’t know what happened, but deadlines came and went, and I just shrugged with the thoughts “bummer, c’est la vie” as it’s a district that I have almost zero ties to. Before letting it go, albeit temporarily, in my mind, I thought, “If Edmond Laplante(and his team of volunteers) can gather 3000 signatures, why couldn’t Mr. Wilkinson gather just a fraction of that?” The math says 1/24 of 3000 is 125, just as 1/2 of 3000 is 1500, so I mistakenly thought that Wilkinson needed 125 because NH has 24 senators. Wrong!
After emailing Scanlan, I learned that 750 petition signatures are required for nontraditional ballot access for both the executive council and the senate. An executive councilor represents 1/5 of the state, and 1/5 of 3000 is 600, so that’s an extra 150 signatures, or 25% more of a petition burden ratio than that of the higher offices.
It’s even worse for the Senate because 750 is 6 times 125.
I also learned that 150 is the number of signatures required for both rep candidates and county office candidates. Seeing that 1/400 of 3000 is 7.5, and even if one accounts for people having 3 reps, that 7.5 becomes 22.5, which would be really darn easy, so 150 is 20 times 7.5, but what about county offices? Not all counties are equal, and that applies to a lot of things, but let’s focus on population.
Coos County has only 9 rep seats, whereas Hillsborough has 123. Gathering qualified signatures to petition for county office candidacy is certainly different among counties, and don’t even get me started about county commissioners in Rochester! I’ll refer all conversation about that to Senator Gray because Strafford County marches to its own drummer, but back to STATE OFFICES, mid-ballot, one does not have to be Dr. Frank to recognize the numbers and ratios varying in a nonlinear way for nontraditional ballot access.
Readers might ask what made me think of all of this right now, and I’ll give my answer. I read Regina’s recent Union Leader article supporting CFR Creighton’s Senate candidacy. It’s full of praiseworthy things, such as his military service. What Regina excluded was his House roll call vote for HB1002 and his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.
People complain about “crowded fields” in primaries, but plenty of November races are more like Musical Chairs, with many candidates vying for a smaller number of seats. Look at school board races. Nashua has 4 seats every 4 years, and the other 5 are up every other election year. Then there are some rep races. Look at Merrimack, Hudson, Bedford, Salem, Londonderry, and Derry, to name some big monster towns that have populations larger than some of the small cities.
Easier ballot access allows more competition, and we know what the economists say about competition. The cream rises to the top, and the availability of quality increases. Right now, Ruth Ward’s constituents have CFR Creighton and the Democrat on their ballot. It’s unknown (to me) why Mr. Wilkinson didn’t qualify for ballot access. Did he change his mind and give up? Did he make a good-faith effort and fail? I don’t know the answer(s), but I do know that if he were on the November ballot, voters wouldn’t have to hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils.
Are there any reps or future reps-elect interested in sponsoring bills to adjust the number of signatures required for nontraditional ballot access for mid-ballot office candidacy?
