This news story is typical of many recent stories in Texas. It says Texas will not be able to hold its primary on April 3. However, we will apparently need to wait until February 15 for a court order that settles the primary date. UPDATE: the 3-judge San Antonio court will hold a status conference in the redistricting lawsuit on the afternoon of February 9 (Thursday), so that may give a clue about the eventual primary date. FURTHER UPDATE: that status conference has been postponed to February 14.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Americans Elect should go ahead and hold their precinct conventions on March 13, as required by Texas law. If they have insufficient attendees at these, they may then begin collecting signatures on their supplementary petitions (they have 75 days).
Jim,
Is there a requirement to have a certain # of precinct conventions…and then begin petition gathering in insufficient attendees?
How about a Fed election czar as in bankruptcy czars when a biz or govt goes bankrupt ???
How many EVIL rotten robot party hack regimes are politically bankrupt — due to minority rule gerrymanders — and the MORON judges who let the minority rule gerrymander regimes exist for even a second ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
#2 Qualification of new parties is in Election Code 181.005 and 181.006. But both the list of those who attend the precinct conventions, and the supplemental petition must be filed by 75 days after the convention, and it is the total count that matters.
At one time, the list of precinct convention attendees was filed 20 days after the convention, and then the supplemental petition was due 55 days later.
Nominations for state, district, and county offices must be made at conventions. The only exception is the presidential and vice-presidential nominations.
Candidates for other offices file with their party, just as if they were seeking a nomination by primary. Technically, the parties run their own primaries, and at one time they actually did so, with primaries being held in different buildings. If you are just using paper ballots and a box with a slot in it, it is easy enough to do. Now that county voting equipment is used, and with early voting and joint primaries being run by the counties, it gets blurred.
The conventions were a lightweight substitute for primaries, and are still run by the parties. So instead of going to the polling place to vote, you would go to a precinct convention, where you would choose delegates to county and other conventions where the nominations are actually made.
The precinct conventions don’t match election precincts on a one to one basis, since parties may consolidate precincts (both the Republicans and Democrats do this as well).
The Libertarians consolidate precincts over pretty wide areas, such as house districts; and have at times had rules that someone can be a delegate to a county convention if they would have been eligible to have been chosen a delegate if they had attended a precinct convention (to be eligible you would have to be a registered voter, lived in the county, and not have affiliated with another party, which mainly occurs by voting).
The precinct conventions for minor parties used to be the night of the primary. When the primary was moved from May to the second Tuesday in March, the minor party conventions were moved. When the primary was moved to the 1st Tuesday, the legislature forgot to change the date for the minor party conventions. All the dates for the convention-nominating parties are independently set from those of the primary-nominating parties. They just happen to be in the same part of the year.
Jim,
Thank you for the response.