Ballot Access Laws Unfair to All Parties

While I can only post about Minnesota at this time, I assume most states are similar with their ballot access laws. Most people involved with minor political parties like the Green Party or the Communist Party are familiar with the requirement to gather signatures to get on the ballot. However, the unfairness goes beyond that and yes, it even includes the Democrats and Republicans. In Minnesota a major party (defined as having gotten 5 percent or more of the vote in the last statewide election) must go through the state-sponsored primary/caucus process. There is no respect for the fact that political parties are supposed to be private organisations, not arms of the state. Minor parties have an equivalent but dissimilar problem: the state assumes that whoever shows up with a petition with the proper number of signatures and the name of a party is that party's candidate, regardless of whether the party wants that individual as a candidate. For example, I could petition to run for office as a Nazi Party candidate, and if I got enough signatures, and got to the Secretary of State's office before any other petitioner for the Nazi Party for that office, I would be the official Nazi candiate and the Nazi Party couldn't do anything about it. Actually that would be quite humourous until some skinhead assassinated me with a baseball bat, but I digress.... The harm that could seriously be done to a third party by someone falsely claiming to represent that party, however, is not funny in the slightest.
We need better ballot access laws that treat all political parties fairly and respect their rights as private organisations to select their candidates accoring to their own rules and policies.
I suggest:
1) Abolishing signature requirements for minor party candidates, and replacing them with a deposit system similar to that used in Great Britain. Candidates would pay a deposit to be on the ballot (in Britain it costs 500 pounds, or about $1,000 U.S., to be on a ballot for Parliament), but would get their deposit back if they got 5 percent or more of the vote. This would discourage purely frivolous candidacies while allowing serious minority viewpoints to be represented on Election Day.
2) A registration system for political parties, large and small. The Secretary of State would have a list of all parties and their proper contact information in order to verify party candidates. This should be at no cost or very little, just enough to cover maintenence of basic records.
3) State-sponsored primaries and caucuses to be abolished. All political parties may choose their candidates in the manner they see fits, according to their own rules as private organisations. If a party chooses to use a caucus or primary system to select its candidates, the party as an organisation should pay for the cost.