On May 27, Judge Robert H. Hobgood signed a 17-page opinion, upholding North Carolina’s ballot access laws for new and previously unqualified parties. Judge Hobgood is a Superior Court Judge in Wake County. Superior Court Judges in North Carolina do not have law clerks, so it is customary for judges to ask each side to write a proposed opinion. In this case, Judge Hobgood signed the opinion that had been written by the Attorney General’s office. The only reasons this opinion mentions for upholding the petition requirement are that any lesser restriction would result in a large ballot, which would cause election-administration problems.
Since this opinion was written by the Attorney General’s office, it naturally omitted a great deal of evidence that this fear is unfounded. The plaintiffs, the Libertarian and Green Parties, will appeal.
No lower state court has ever held that its state requires too many signatures to place a party, or a candidate, on the ballot, under the constitution (whether federal constitution or state constitution). The only state courts that have ever declared the number of signatures unconstitutional have been the highest state court in that state. These instances were in New York in 1912, Michigan in 1981, Alaska in 1982, and Maryland in 2003. In all four cases, the lower courts had upheld the challenged laws.
The opinion has no immediate impact on the Libertarian Party, since it completed this year’s petition anyway. But it will keep any other party from qualifying this year. The law requires 69,734 valid signatures this year, and probably 80,000 or so in 2010.
Will the appeal lawyers have enough brains to note that SEPARATE – IS – NOT – EQUAL ???
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
There really needs to be a significant write-in candidate for a statewide election. That will certainly make the BOE think about ballot access a bit more, especially if it takes them days to count votes that an optical scan machine can’t.
In 2000, Ralph Nader failed to qualify as a write-in for president in North Carolina, which is a shame, since in the 5 states in which he was a declared write-in candidate, he got a huge write-in vote. Those states were Georgia (13,273 write-ins), Idaho (12,292 write-ins), Indiana (18,506 write-ins), and Wyoming (4,625 write-ins).
Nader in 2000 is the only presidential candidate in U.S. history who ever polled as much as 1% of the presidential vote in any state as a write-in.
A copy of the judge’s order has been uploaded to Wiki Leaks, and can be accessed via Green Party watch here:
http://tinyurl.com/3gpx48
The North Carolina Green Party is in the process of collecting the 1000 signatures needed to get our presumed presidential candidate recognized as a write-in candidate. If you like to help contact me and I will send you the petition form with instructions. schwandes@gmail.com Subject: write-in petition
Thanks to all! Kai Schwandes
I lost all respect for the third party types when former Libertarians tried to takeover the GOP. You can all go hang as far as I am concerned, especially if you can’t go collect a few signatures…exposing you guys as nothing more than fringe elements of society whining because it’s “not fair”. Life is not fair. Get over it. Work for success, not hand outs.
The Nader for President 2008 campaign will be organizing a write-in petition drive in North Carolina this summer. Go to http://www.votenader.org to volunteer.