On October 3, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1419, which moves the deadline for new parties to get on the ballot for President from January to July.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
On October 3, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1419, which moves the deadline for new parties to get on the ballot for President from January to July.
Have they reduced the signature requirement? The new party ballot access petition had the highest requirement in the country, as it required over 1 million valid signatures, which is too high even when one considers the high population of California.
The voter registration requirement of 103,000 and something registered voters under a particular party banner to qualify for the ballot is high too, but even that does not seem as insane as the petition signature requirement that I mentioned above is.
Assemblymember Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park) may introduce a bill early next year to lower the registration requirement in half. He has asked legislative counsel to draft the proposed bill. He wants California’s minor parties to ask their state legislators to support that idea before he commits to introducing the bill. I have been wondering how best to mobilize people to contact their state legislators and ask that their own state legislators support Gordon in this matter.
They should reduce the registration requirement to 100 or 200. There are no longer partisan primaries for offices other than president, so the current restriction on party affiliation simply serves to violate the 1st Amendment.
They could let any candidate who receives 1% of the vote in the presidential primary qualify for the general election.
BTW the laws for initiatives apply to party qualification petitions as well. That is why the SOS wanted the Americans Elect petition so early. It was based on the initiative counting procedures.
AB 857 adds 12 days, in addition to the volunteer signature requirement.
Jim Riley
Please provide more information on AB 857.
Richard Winger
Please explain in more detail on Richard Gordon’s
plan. Do you think that bill could be expended
so the American Independent Party of California
could hold its convention and state central committee meeting in 2014 outside of Sacramento
County. AIP wants the authority to also meet in
West Sacramento if the State Central Committee
can get the use of the Zigurrat (sic) Building
in the City of West Sacramento.
Richard has previously blogged about AB 857.
It applies to initiative petitions and requires 10% of the required number of signatures to be gathered by “volunteers”. The Constitution is quite clear about the number of signatures required on an initiative. It would be pretty outrageous if a court upheld a distinction based on who collected signatures.
It also added in some additional time (12 days) for the county election officials to count signatures.
Elections Code 5100(c) applies the regulations for initiative petitions to petitions to qualify political parties. AB 1419 adds the same language in new section 5151(d) for political parties qualifying for presidential elections.
An initiative petition is not considered to have been filed with the Secretary of State until after the counties have counted the signatures.
So while Richard said the filing deadline is now June, it is really several months eariler (and this was extended by 12 day by AB 857.