On April 1, the Arizona House Judiciary passed SB 1024 unanimously. The bill has also passed the Senate. It removes the names of candidates for presidential elector from the November ballot, and adds the names of vice-presidential candidates to the November ballot. Under current law, vice-presidential candidates’ names are not listed on the ballot, but candidates for elector are. Because Arizona has 10 electoral votes, it takes quite a bit of ballot space to list the electors. For example, in 2008, the November ballot listed 50 candidates for presidential elector.
If the Arizona bill is signed into law, the only states that will still print the names of presidential electors on their ballots will be Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, and Idaho.
It is always odd when a state like Oklahoma claims it can’t print the names of minor party or independent candidates for president on the ballot because otherwise the ballot will be too crowded, and yet that same state prints the names of candidates for presidential elector on the ballot.
Odd indeed that an artificial scarcity of ballot space allows all manner of rent-seeking incumbent privileges. Let’s face it: Presidential Electors are vanity candidates chosen by the parties to what has become an honorific office. It wasn’t intended by the Framers to be this way but it is.
In 2008 one California Presidential Elector was dead at the point of appointment by a U.S. Congressman (Democrat). The people of California elected a dead person. An employee of the Democratic Party switched the dead elector (of Humbolt County) with a bogus elector (of Los Angeles County)and Secretary of State
Bowen allowed the bogus elector to vote at the California Electorial College meeting in December, 2008,
In violation of the California Election Code, since the
replacement Presidential Elector is to be voted on at the meeting of the California Electorial College.
This came up in the case of KEYES v. BOWEN. It is good
to list the PRESIDENTAL ELECTORS on the ballot. All one
needs is a Secretary of State that follows the California Election Code. In California our SOS is a
Democratic Party hack that lets the State Chairman of
the Democratic Party state central committee select on his own the replacement of Presidential Elector Huber
and bypasses the California Election Code by not allowing the Electorial College to replace Huber (who
was dead) at the point of her appointment and election.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American
Independent Party
Mr. Robinson mentions the Founders. I have a chapter on that in the book I’m working on. The chapter is “The Original Intentions of the Framers for US Presidential Elections.†Free reading or download at http://ssrn.com/author=1053589
Comments welcome!
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
InternetVoting@gmail.com