The fall of an insufficient barrier : testing the ballot access reforms of Florida constitution revision 11

On November 3, 1998, Florida\u27s voters approved by wide margin a revision to the Florida State Constitution. Among other things, Revision 11 made ballot access more equitable for independent and third-party candidates for elected office. This was an important step towards giving voters legitimate electoral options outside of the two major political parties. This study seeks to determine whether or not voters have been emboldened by the ballot access change to support candidates from outside of the two major parties in more significant numbers. This research makes an empirical comparison between the four elections for Florida\u27s United States House of Representatives members prior to Revision 11 reforms and the four elections after. The analysis considers what effect the new, equitable ballot access rules have on minor party electoral success while controlling for certain variables that are hypothesized to have impacted the dependent variable. In all, it is expected that the removal of ballot access barriers will spell success for Florida\u27s minor political parties holding all of these other considerations constant. However, the results of the statistical analysis show that ballot access is simply not enough to ensure third-party electoral success