The Ohio Secretary of State has rejected Martin O’Malley’s petition to be placed on the Democratic presidential primary ballot. See this story. He needed 1,000 signatures and submitted 1,175. He has been told that only 772 signatures are valid.
Ohio voter registration forms do not ask about party affiliation. However, signatures on Ohio primary petitions are not valid if the signer voted in some other party’s primary in the last election. Signatures on O’Malley’s petition would have been invalidated if the signer voted in the Republican, Green, or Libertarian primary in 2014. Also, of course, signatures would be invalid if the signer isn’t registered to vote at all. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for this news.
Did De La Fuente submit a petition to Ohio?
Yes, it was accepted. So he will be one of 3 candidates on the ballot.
Apparently he has!
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/31/politics/omalley-de-la-fuente-ohio-ballot/index.html
I find it amazing that Fuente has the organization to submit petitions with well over 15,000 signatures in multiple states, yet the O’Maley campaign cant even submit 2000 signatures in a state like Ohio. I wonder if O’Maley relied on volunteers to petition in Ohio, I imagine Fuente has been hiring professional petitioners to get his signatures.
I would guess that O’Malley also used paid circulators in Ohio, but I’m not sure. It would be interesting to know. Yes, De La Fuente uses paid petitioners.
Rocky should call a press conference for this.
Maybe the paid circulators didn’t identify who paid them on each petition sheet.
Volunteers are good as volunteers. For the work that NEEDS to get done, you need political professionals.
PS, Have a Happy 2016.
I love this website. Richard Winger, you do the political world a lot of good by publishing informtion that that would otherwise be (mostly) ignored. Kudos to you and your team.
Rocky de la Fuente – sounds like the cigars in my humidor have been getting busy. Perhaps I should install a light in there.
Speaking of Rocky de la Fuente, the NC Board of Elections website shows that he has qualified for the Democratic Presidential Primary on March 15th. He just barely made it with 10,111 qualifying signatures.