Fairly easy to get on Arizona primary ballot

In Arizona it takes just your signature and that of 499 friends within the same party to be a candidate in the state’s presidential preference primary.

If you are a Republican, that would put your name on the March 22 GOP ballot alongside Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, who registered this past week, and Ben Carson, who was scheduled to file his papers Saturday, Nov. 14.

No Democratic candidates have filed, but other national candidates from both parties are expected to file their papers to be on the Arizona primary ballot.

If you don’t want to go through the trouble of getting 500 signatures, the state has another way to get your name on the ballot: Proof that your name is on the primary ballots in at least two other states.

The deadline for filing either of those is Dec. 14.

Before 1992, Arizona delegates to national conventions were chosen by party caucuses.

That was upended with a change in law creating a presidential preference primary in Arizona.

Four years ago, the more than 500,000 Arizona Republicans who turned out for the GOP primary could choose among 23 candidates.

Mitt Romney took the lion’s share with 239,167. And he went on to win the national nomination, only to lose to incumbent Barack Obama.

But other, much lesser-known contenders also got some votes, includng Phoenix hospital administrator Kip Dean and Tucsonan Charles Skelley.

That huge GOP field in 2012 was partly the result of the fact that, at the time, there was no signature requirement: Anyone could simply self-nominate.

In reaction, lawmakers in 2013 tightened restrictions to require 1,000 signatures or proof of ballot status in 20 other states.

But state Elections Director Eric Spencer said his office believed that was unworkable and earlier this year convinced the Legislature to loosen that to 500 names or being on the ballot in two other states.

The Democrats, by virtue of having an incumbent in the White House, opted not to participate in the 2012 Arizona primary.

With Obama termed out, Spencer said he anticipates the Democrats also will field candidates to gain Arizona’s delegates, though as of late Friday no one had yet filed to run in the state’s Democratic primary. And he anticipates a Green Party primary.

The Libertarian Party, by contrast, has consistently used alternate methods to choose delegates to its own presidential convention.