Late in the day on November 6, both houses of the Ohio legislature passed SB 193, the bill to re-define “political party”. The final version, as ironed out in a conference committee, is far worse than the version of the bill that the House had passed last week.
The new petition for elections beyond 2014 is the same petition requirement that exists in the current statutory law, 1% of the previous vote. The new vote test for elections beyond 2014 is 3% of the vote for the office at the top of the ticket (president in presidential years, governor in midterm years). However, when the vote test is met, the party gets the next two elections, not just the next election.
For 2014 only, the petition is one-half of 1% of the 2012 presidential vote, so approximately 28,000 signatures will be needed for 2014. The petition is due in early July.
A new hurdle, which didn’t exist in the old law, is that the party petition needs 500 signatures from each of half the U.S. House districts.
The House version required 10,000 signatures for 2014, and one-half of 1% for elections beyond that. The House version set the vote test at 2% for all future elections, not just 2014.
The bill does not say that the 2010 election returns should not be used to determine qualified status. The legislature seems to feel that the fact that the Libertarian Party got 2.4% for Governor in 2010 does not put the party on the ballot automatically for 2014. But precedents from ten other states suggest that the bill does do that, because the bill does not say the 2010 race doesn’t count. Whether the Libertarian Party is already on the ballot for 2014 will probably be the subject of a lawsuit, assuming the Governor signs the bill. UPDATE: the bill says the vote test in 2010 is 3%, so there can be no argument that the Libertarians are on the 2014 ballot automatically.
The bill only received 51 votes in the House, the bare minimum needed for passage. See this story.
After the Virginia election, we’re probably going to see more state legislatures pulling this cr*p. Everyone who believes in the “spoiler theory” and uses it to bully people into voting D or R, but also claims to believe in democratic elections, is a massive hypocrite, pure and simple.
Somebody needs to destroy the “spoiler theory”. I would like the be the person or part of the group who eventually does it, but even if I’m not SOMEONE needs to destroy it, for democracy’s sake.
The movement for ranked-choice voting, or approval voting, needs to grow stronger. The idea of “spoiling” would be virtually banished if ranked-choice voting or approval voting were in place. Activists should support fairvote.org and its sister organizations, including those in Minnesota and California.
ALL of the New Age gerrymander monsters are statist control freak MONSTERS from Hell — leading the USA to Civil WAR II.
Every election is NEW.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
I’ve heard of ranked choice. If I remember correctly, Free and Equal used it to determine who got to debate in their final third party debate last year. I’ll look into fairvote.org, thanks.
The bill says that a minor party qualifies if it received 3% of the vote. The specific exception is for the 2014 election.
Since the law can not go into effect for 90 days, which is just a couple of days before the filing deadline for the primary, the minor parties will probably be able to get an injunction for 2014.
Since the petition requirement is substantially less (3% vs. 5%) and the filing deadline is more than half a year later, it would seem that the 6th Circuit would have no choice but to accept it for subsequent years.
The Brunner decision was a split 2:1 vote with the majority stressing that it was the combination of an early filing deadline and number of signatures that was problematic.
Top 2 eliminates the necessity for party qualification.
Top Two. Goodness. That is a sure fired way to not have any minor parties on the Fall Ballot. And, it would insure a lot of people just stay home because the choice they want are not going to the big dance in November. I know my entire family would just quit voting most of the time. We are not going to vote for most of the major party brands that have already screwed up this country . Why not Top Three (3).
Move the primary to October.
Top 2 eliminates minor parties from the real election. Why on earth would anyone from this site support it?
It is amazing the lengths legislatures will go to destroy competition.
Virginia exit polls showed that the Libertarian Party brings out voters who would not vote otherwise.
See here:
http://wapo.st/17IOLTK