Steve Hoffman has filed to be on the August 2018 Washington state top-two primary ballot as a candidate for U.S. Senate. Washington state law says any candidate can choose any partisan label as long as it is not obscene and is not longer than 16 characters. However, a space counts as a character. Therefore, the ballot will put “prefers FreedomSocialist Party” on the ballot instead of “Prefers Freedom Socialist Party.”
No other state controls the number of characters in a partisan label. Other states instead control the number of words. Typically three words are permitted, but sometimes five. The Freedom Socialist Party and Hoffman are considering suing to improve the label from “FreedomSocialist” to “Freedom Socialist.”
Any limit in characters/spaces for candidate names ???
Equal spacing fonts ??? Courier ???
Good point. There is no limit on how long a candidate’s name is. In 2016 there was a Green Party candidate for the presidential nomination named Sedinam Moyowasifsa-Curry and that was printed on California Green Party presidential primary ballots, exactly like that.
Your title says “Secretary of State forces” but in the second sentence you say “state law says.” Since the SOS doesn’t make law, the headline should read “Washington State Legislature forces…” That would be accurate.
The state law doesn’t say a blank space counts as a character.
@Sue Dawn,
It is actually the Washington Administrative Code (WAC 435-215-120). The WAC has the force of law, and the Secretary of State is authorized under statute (RCW 29A.04.611) to issue necessary regulations regarding elections.
The initiated Top 2 law in 2004 did not state how a party’s name would appear on the ballot. In campaign literature it was implied that ballots would look the same as voters were familiar with: Doris Doe (D), Rhonda Roe (R), Libby Lowe (L), etc. Under the blanket primary, all candidates appeared on the same primary ballot.
Based on a facial challenge, a federal district court ruled that the the Top 2 Primary was indistinguishable from the blanket primary. The SCOTUS eventually overturned that decision. Before the court Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna successfully argued that the statute did not state how a candidates party preference would appear on the ballot. The initiative status did say that a candidate could indicate his “party preference or affiliation”
McKenna argued that a party preference was personal speech by the candidate, and did not imply support or endorsement by the party that was preferred. While some justices were skeptical, they said that the case should have been tried on an as applied standard.
The opinion was issued in March 2008, and Secretary of State Sam Reed promulgated regulations implementing the statute. In particular, ballots contain the words “Prefers XYZZY Party” and an explanation of the meaning of party preference would appear on ballots. The regulations provided for a revised filing form with 16 boxes to indicate the candidate’s party preference. I don’t know where the number 16 came from. “Democratic” and “Republican” are both 10 letters, and “Libertarian” is 11.
The federal district court upheld the law as applied, including the regulatory changes. That decision was affirmed by the 9th Circuit, and the SCOTUS did not take the appeal.
So the 16-letter limit is in Washington state regulatory law, rather than statutory law, but it is in law nonetheless. The legislature could enact legislation changing the length of party names. It probably is not accurate to say that the Secretary of State (Kim Wyman) is forcing, since the regulation has been in effect for 10 years.
@Richard Winger,
Washington Administration Code includes an image of the filing form. It has 16 squares in which a candidate may fill in name of his party preference, letter-by-letter. “D E M O C R A T I C _ _ _ _ _”
The ballots implicitly include “Prefers” and “Party” A candidate with no party preference appears as “States No Party Preference” which is distinguishable from “Prefers Independent Party”
There are 26 candidates for US Senate, including peripatetic (distinguished from perennial) candidate Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente. Preference are: Republican (12 candidates); Democratic (4); Independent (4); Libertarian (1); and Green (1).
The are all candidates preferring “StandupAmerica”, “FreedomSocialist”, “The Human Rights”, and “FDFR” parties. I don’t know why “StandupAmerica” is compressed to 14 characters; the Human Rights candidate included the definite article and I don’t know what FDFR stands for.
For other offices, candidates included words that will make a phrase when combined with “Party”:
“Neither Major” (Party)
“Independent To” (Party)
“People Over” (Party)
In the past, many Republican candidates used words other than “Republican” but the state party has discouraged such use. Nonetheless, the 2018 will include:
“GOP” (Party) (6 candidates)
“G.O.P.” (Party)
“The Republican” (Party)
“Prefers GOP” (Party) – he will appear on the ballot as the “Prefers Prefers GOP Party”
“Moderate GOP” (Party) – this is by Mover, Uncle who has previously run as Mover, Mike The
“Ind. Republican”
There are also:
“Indep. Centrist” (two candidates)
“Ind. Progressive”
Literal ballot censorship. Limiting the number of candidates or parties for whom the voter can choose is also literal ballot censorship, but under despised.
Any *STATIST CENSORS* (Party) ???
I figured out what FDFR stands for. It’s actually profane. It stands for F*Dems/F*Reps. His website it “screwbothparties”.
I just want to give mad props to Sam Wright / The Human Rights Party for finding a way around the character limit. (any future candidates who want to stand out with a long name should take note; or, if any parties decide to sue can use them as a fun example)
On my ballot at least I think they were able to reach 19 characters. If the common words “Prefers” & “Party” (appearing at the beginning and end of each stated preference) are not counted then you get:
Prefers -The Human Rights- Party=16
However, on the Spanish line the common words appear to be “Prefiere el Partido”
i.e. Prefiere el Partido Republicano; Prefiere el Partido Demócrata; etc.
Entonces:
Prefiere el Partido -de Derechos Humanos-
=19?
Granted they didn’t give him the word “Los” but as far as I can see they’re the only party that gets the word “de” on all the Spanish lines. Keep in mind that on the English line their party capitalized “the” and came in under 16 characters with it included. The extra “de” does lead to them sticking out further than anyone else on the ballot. So, I think it is fair to count the word “de” in their Spanish character total. (For example: Dems and Reps dont get “Prefiere el Partido de Demócratas” or “Prefiere el Partido de los Republicanos”)
Perhaps when I run I’ll put
“Prefers Lazy Horse Trail Party” or “Prefiere el Partido Sendero de Caballos Perezoso” =28? (I suppose they could leave out the de and knock me down to 25? I’d still only be at 16 in English)
Meanwhile the “StandupAmerica” (=14 so they can afford 2 spaces) Party says no to any spaces. Perhaps they gave theirs to the Freedom Socialist; or, perhaps the spaces were redistributed to those in need? Before doing the math I was going to suggest they enter Levánta América as their name and see if the SOS translated it back in English with spaces.
P.S. I’m in Yakima County these days and I don’t remember if the ballots had Spanish on them when I lived in King County. So IDK if it is just this county, new statewide, or if I just didn’t pay attention to it before.