That rule is batshit insane and completely backwards.

Edit: to be clear, the rule that says third parties have to get 10x the number of signatures mentioned in the article.

Yep!

Nah, I’ll bite

Candidates from the two major parties need signatures from 0.5% of qualified primary voters from their party in the congressional district. For parties not on the ballot for the last election, candidates must collect signatures from 5% of all general election voters, according to state law.

I don’t hate this for statewide level* offices. Election offices are under funded enough, they don’t have the resources to fuck around with every joke party somebody makes.

And not to mention the other races that the Green party has run in and won:

Californians have elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18) and Maine (17). Maine has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country and the largest Green registration percentage with more than 29,273 Greens comprising 2.95% of the electorate as of November 2006.[68] Madison, Wisconsin is the city with the most Green elected officials (8), followed by Portland, Maine (7).