On August 9, at least three large newspapers in Ohio took at face value the statement of an Ohio elections official who asserted that no stand-in presidential or vice-presidential candidate had ever before submitted a petition. Here is the Cincinnati story. And here is the Cleveland story. UPDATE: here is the Toledo Blade story.
The truth is that presidential petitions in Ohio have used stand-ins in the past. The Libertarian presidential independent petition in Ohio in 1996 listed Ed Clark as the stand-in presidential candidate, and David Bergland as the stand-in vice-presidential candidate. John Anderson’s Ohio petition used a stand-in for vice-president in 1980. The Constitution Party and the Reform Party both used an independent petition in Ohio in 2000, and Ohio let both of them alter their vice-presidential nominees that year. But the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer reporters did not investigate, and simply believed the Ohio elections official.
Ohio election law 3513.31(F) says, “If a person nominated by petition as an independent withdraws, the vacancy so created may be filled by a majority of the committee of five, as designated on the candidate’s nominating petition.”
How does this correlate with the time it takes for the state to check the signatures?
I’m not sure I understand your question. What does the petition-checking process have to do with substitution?
Is there anything in the law that says the Presidential ticket has to be finalized X days before the general election? And, if the state doesn’t finish checking the signatures until after date X does that nullify the opportunity to substitute candidates?
In 2012, the Democrats didn’t nominate for president or vice-president until September 6. So all states provides that parties need not certify their national ticket until September 6. No state wanted to leave the Democratic ticket off its ballot.
The federal law telling states to mail their overseas absentee ballots, in federal elections, sets a 45-day deadline. So that is not til September 23, 2016, because the election is November 8, 2016.
As one of the applicable “committee of five,” I’d like to thank you for this clear and concise clarification. I’ll be copying the link.
I’ve been searching through Kentucky Revised Statutes for the pertinent election law in Kentucky regarding candidate substitution because I’m helping with the Green Party petition drive, yet I can’t find the language about it. A bunch of people are scared to gather signatures because they think our petitions won’t count with Howie Hawkins listed as VP instead of Ajamu Baraka. I’m positive it’ll still count, but I want to be able to point to the specific language.
I’d rather have Howie Hawkins as VP.
I read that Ohio Statute, and it’s as plain as the nose on my face that Johnson can be substituted. Is the election official that dumb, or was this clickbait for the newspaper?
Sort of related to Johnson’s quest for ballot access, there are a few deadlines coming up in August. CT, IA, MN, NH and VA come to mind. Ohio as well, but that’s been reported. I’ve researched this for the Libertarian party, and the websites and Facebook pages for IA, MN, and VA all have good information on their ballot access efforts on Johnson’s behalf. However, I can’t find anything related to how this is going in CT and NH, and I believe their deadlines are today? Is there something wrong here, and any chance that Johnson could miss the ballot in these states?
TomP, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that for a party as experienced and well organized as the LP I’ll be shocked if they fail to make the ballot in any of the states you list.
TomP, I was told that enough signatures had been collected for Johnson/Weld as of Saturday, August 6th. This is why I was instructed to conclude my collection efforts that night (I stopped when I reached 1,000 signatures). But at least one unpaid person was continuing to collect signatures for Johnson/Weld up until early this afternoon.
My comment above relates to Connecticut
Kris Smoot, the Kentucky Attorney General issued an opinion on August 15, 1995, saying Kentucky allows stand-ins for president and vice-president. Many states permit substitution for those two offices even though the law doesn’t mention it. Every state except South Dakota printed Patrick Lucey’s name on November 1980 ballots, as the v-p for John B. Anderson, even though Anderson didn’t choose Lucey until August 27, 1980, long after he had finished petitioning in most states. The basis was that all states let the Democrats substitute a new v-p nominee in 1972. Thomas Eagleton was nominated in July 1972 and certified to all the states. But in August 1972 he resigned and all states let the Democrats substitute Sargent Shriver. Anderson v Celebrezze, the 1983 US Supreme Court decision, said states must treat independent tickets equally with major party presidential nominees, so substitution is constitutionally required. If you want a copy of the 1995 Kentucky A.G. Opinion, tell me your postal address and I will send you a copy.
Kevin, thanks for your reply. My concern was that none of the public information was reporting on how many signatures had been attained. As one example, in Virginia, the party’s Facebook page had reported that they turned in 5500 signatures last week. This is three weeks ahead of their deadline, and efforts were continuing because they wanted to get around 7500 – 8000 signatures, in case the state determines some signatures are not valid. Virginia has a 5000 signature requirement. I wasn’t seeing anything at this level of detail in CT or NH.
Someone explained that you get the signatures validated at the local level in many New England States, so that when they are finally turned in, it’s just a matter of counting the number collected. That’s why they didn’t need much of a cushion in Mass. Is it that way in CT as well?
TomP, the same excellent people who coordinated the CT LP petition drive in 2012 worked on it in 2016. I have confidence in their assessment that they have obtained more than enough valid signatures. There is always a significant cushion needed in CT since only about 75-80 percent of the signatures tend to be deemed valid. The CT LP usually turns in all the paid signatures towards the deadline to the Secretary of State’s office in Hartford who thereafter mails the relevant forms to each of the 169 town halls. This happens after the CT LP has evaluated many of the forms at random to check on validity rates and after the total number of signatures has been counted.
OH SoS news release:
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/mediaCenter/2016/2016-08-10-a.aspx
Gary Johnson will not appear on the Ohio ballot … according to this story:
Columbus, Ohio • Aug 12, 2016 •
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/08/11/Libertarians_will_not_be_able_to_substitute_Johnson.html
The Columbus Dispatch
“It appears that the Libertarian Party will be unable to place its presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, as an independent candidate on Ohio’s general election ballot.
County boards of elections will be unable to certify petition signatures submitted for a “placeholder” candidate, would-be 2014 gubernatorial candidate Charlie Earl, by a key deadline on Monday, according to the office of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.
Monday is the deadline for the withdrawal and replacement of independent candidates and the needed 5,000 signatures among the 12,000-plus submitted with Earl’s name will not be certified in time to meet that deadline, Husted spokesman Joshua Eck said today. Husted has given the elections board until Aug. 19 to complete the certification, several days before the legally mandated deadline.”
Ohio has no law saying that substitution paperwork can’t be filed until the petition has been validated. The Libertarian Party has already completed all the paperwork for substitution. The deadline for that paperwork is Monday, August 15, and the Libertarian Party will meet that deadline.
It was absurd for any election official in Ohio to say that substitution can’t be used for president and vice-president, when actually it has been used in Ohio in 1980, 1996, and by two campaigns in 2004. It hasn’t been used recently in Ohio because all the minor parties of significance were ballot-qualified parties in Ohio in 2008 and 2012, thanks to past lawsuit rulings.
What is the effect of the election official’s comments: lots of free media for Johnson-Weld creating a lot of positive sentiment, right? What if, just saying, what if that were the goal?
Weld endorsed Kasich for president, right? The two of them have to be at least political friends. Kasich’s views on the Republican nominee are not hard to decipher. If only there were another option…hmmm.
I guarantee Husted finds a way to keep Johnson off the ballot. Why did they use stand-ins, anyway? Surely they could collect 5,000 sigs post convention?
Collecting signatures early in the process is much cheaper. For some reason, the price for professional petitioners to obtain one signature has skyrocketed in the last 12 months, and it is now normal for them to receive $3 per signatures. Even though it is hard work, I can’t understand why more people don’t enter the profession.
Anyway the Libertarian Party used presidential stand-ins this year in about 10 states. It is just normal. The Green Party also used stand-ins for vice-president this year and other years. Ross Perot used stand-ins. George Wallace used them. John Anderson used them.
Yes, but how many of those were used on independent petitions rather than party petitions or petitions with the Libertarian ballot label.
None of them were party petitions. Party petitions don’t include the names of any candidates.
As to candidate petitions, in half the states a label besides just “independent” is permitted, and in the other half, it is not permitted. But it seems irrelevant to me whether party labels can be on candidate petitions.
I think the Reform Party used a stand-in presidential candidate in Ohio in 2000. The party did not do a party petition in Ohio in 2000. It circulated a candidate petition in the spring of 2000 in Ohio, and didn’t choose a presidential nominee until August 2000, so it is likely that a stand-in was used. And even if it was a Pat Buchanan petition, he didn’t choose Ezola Foster until August, so it is a cinch a vice-presidential stand-in was used.
At this point, it is imperative to file for substitution – if it hasn’t already been done – EARLY on MONDAY before the deadline.
Since this is now a major controversy, take advantage of the opportunity.
* Fly-in Johnosn or Weld or both for the filing on Monday.
* Make sure to alert all the media to the filing and a speaking event afterward.
* No matter what happens at the filing – they will either accept the filing without incident, refuse the filing, or accept the filing provisionally – this will be a good story for the news. Attention can be focused on the attempt of the two major parties to do anything to keep 3rd parties (the LP and GJ/WW in particular) off the ballot.
* Having the candidate(s) there will draw more media attention and coverage and make it more likely for the Sec of State to handle the filing fairly and legally.
* The public record of the filing event with the candidates and media present will be a valuable aid to any legal battle to follow if the Sec of State should follow through on their threat to deny substitution.
The campaign should consult legal counsel and be ready to take legal action immediately and, if the filing to substitute is not accepted without incident or qualificatoin, be prepared to announce such appropriate legal action to be filed immediatetly on Monday.
What is the status on this?? i don’t live in Ohio but know people who do and am a county director in OK for the Johnson/Weld campaign and want to know if there is anything we can do to help. Phone calls, etc, if need be.
So, it’s Monday morning. Hope Johnson and Weld are in Columbus ready to file for substitution and take this to the media.
On August 24, 2016 at 9:21am within the Libertarian Party of Connecticut’s Facebook comments section, Jody Weitzman, the Connecticut Director for the Johnson/Weld 2016 campaign, asserted that they are “On the ballot!!!” in Connecticut.