As everyone focuses on New Hampshire right now for the presidential campaign, the Massachusetts Primary is not that far away with a date to vote on March 1 – known a Super Tuesday.
There are four candidates on the Democratic Presidential Primary ballot in Massachusetts, 13 Republican candidates and five Green Rainbow candidates for voters to pick from.
To get on the ballot, State Committee chairs must submit lists of candidates to the Secretary of State. If those lists do not contain certain names, the Secretary has the right to add the name of any well-known national candidates. The third way to get on the ballot is to collect 2,500 signatures.
The deadline for that process came on Jan. 4, and one candidate qualified for the Democratic ballot in that fashion – Roque ‘Rocky’ De la Fuente of California.
The Democratic ballot will include:
• Bernie Sanders
• Martin O’Malley
• Hillary Clinton
• Roque ‘Rocky’ De la Fuente
On the Republican side, there are more choices than eggs in a carton. Republican voters on Super Tuesday in Massachusetts will have a whopping 13 candidates to choose from. They include (in order):
•Jim Gilmore
•Donald Trump
•Ted Cruz
•George Pataki
•Ben Carson
•Mike Huckabee
•Rand Paul
•Carly Fiorina
•Rick Santorum
•Chris Christie
•Marco Rubio
•Jeb Bush
•John Kasich
The third part on the ballot will be the Green Rainbow Party, and there will be five candidates, including (in order):
•Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza Curry
•Jill Stein
•William Kreml
•Kent Mesplay
•Darryl Cherney
Massachusetts’ Primary Election has evolved over the years with Super Tuesday to become more of an important event. Though it has been on March 1 for some years, the many states combining to hold Primary Elections on March 1 have bulked up the importance of those holding elections on that day.
“The primary here has been on Super Tuesday for a long time, but what happened is Super Tuesday has evolved quite a bit,” said Brian McNiff of the Secretary of State’s Office. “It was originally set off as the first big blockbuster voting day. You have Iowa and then New Hampshire and a couple of others, but this was to be the big event. Many states will be voting on that day and Massachusetts will be one of them.”
The deadline to register to vote in the presidential primary on March 1 is Feb. 20.