Oklahoma Court Denies Injunctive Relief for Barr

On October 6, U.S. District Court Judge David Russell, a Reagan appointee, denied injunctive relief in Barr v Clingman, civ-08-730-R. However, he set a briefing schedule for the declaratory relief part of the case.

Judge Russell had also upheld the Oklahoma presidential petition procedures in 1996, in Natural Law Party v Henley; and he had done so again in 2000 in Nader v Ward. In 1996 he wrote that the law does not place a “significant, severe or substantial burden on either presidential or vice-presidential candidates’ access to the ballot or on voters’ right to vote.” Judge Russell had also upheld Oklahoma’s failure to provide for write-ins, in COFOE v McElderry in 1993. However, unlike his actions in those three previous cases, at least this time he kept the case alive so that more evidence can be presented in the next four months.

Oklahoma voters who desire to vote for Barr, or Nader, or Baldwin, or McKinney, or any other presidential candidate besides Obama and McCain, ought to consider setting up a “freedom ballot”, as was done in Mississippi in 1964. Many adult black citizens in Mississippi were not permitted to register in 1964, so they set up alternate voting sites, with their own ballots and their own registration procedures. With the existence of the internet, such activity ought to be easier than it was in 1964.

Another alternative for people who are really unhappy about losing their free vote, would be to sit in at the polls. This was done in Indiana in 1988. One particular voter refused to leave the polls until he was permitted to cast a write-in vote. Indiana banned write-ins at the time, and Indiana was one of four states which kept Ron Paul off the November 1988 ballot as the Libertarian nominee for president. The voter was arrested and taken to jail, but Indiana’s ban on write-ins was struck down shortly afterwards in Paul’s lawsuit.


Comments

Oklahoma Court Denies Injunctive Relief for Barr — No Comments

  1. I like your thinking. Sounds like a plan…except whenever I vote, I will need to vote for congress…so I can’t really do that.

  2. I was thinking of taking kopektate(?) to the poll and vomiting on my Oklahoma ballot.

  3. Frank, that is syrup of ipecac, not kaopectate. I plan on writing Barr on my ballot, just not near the scantron area.

  4. Why not just a nationwide “shadow poll” apparatus, built around open-source, secure e-voting technology? Vote in the official elections AND vote online in the secure “shadow poll.” Then, we can compare the results of one with the other, as a way of keeping the official elections honest.

    I’m getting pretty tired of the rigged and/or rickety official election procedures. Perhaps a competitive, fully open and public, yet private-sector elections mechanism can help restore faith in our election results.

  5. I’m very angry with Oklahoma. I have never voted before, I just turned 21 and my husband has been in the Navy so we moved frequently and in 2004 I was 17, so now that I registered I get to vote for who becomes president, I can’t vote for who I want. It’s ridiculous, makes no sense to me. How can the young adults of America be heard if they can’t even vote for a candidate that they want? Considering it’s not Obama or McCain.. which I definitely do not want either. This is not the America I was born in.

  6. I am going to sit in at my local polling place. I would feel like an irresponsible Libertarian if I didn’t engage in a little civil disobedience to support what I believe in: true fiscal conservatism, social liberalism, and the right to vote for the candidate of my choice. Please join me!

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