On August 27, a Washington state trial court ruled that if an individual signs more than one presidential petition, none of the signatures count. As a result, the Constitution, Alliance, and American Solidarity Parties are off the ballot for president. The case was Wyman v Alliance Party, Thurston County superior court.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Perhaps they should have made this rule more clear BEFORE they gathered the signatures. Pretty crappy decision in my little valued opinion
What a crock of shit.
What is funny is that the state court from the Democratic led state court penalized the center and right wing parties and allowed the center left and left wing parties to have ballot access. We cannot in this case suspect the state court for hurting political parties that could take votes away from Biden and for helping conservative political parties that could take votes away from Trump.
Paging BLM and Antifa – feel free to burn down the courthouse there.
The Washington statute says that “no person may sign more than one nominating petition”
Some persons signed more than one petition. The SOS asked the court what should happen to the signatures of those signatories. The court appears to have ruled that all signatures by voters who had signed more than one petition are invalid.
It appears that signatures on the Green, Libertarian, Socialist and Libertarian, and Socialist Workers Party were also considered. That is, a signer who signed the Socialist Workers and Constitution petitions would have both signatures invalidated. However the cross-over signatures were insufficient to disqualify the G, L, S&L, SW petitions.
Remarkably, 69% of the valid American Solidarity signers signed other petitions. This was also true for 49% of the Constitution, and 39% of the Alliance Party signers.
A logical alternative interpretation would be that when someone signs their first petition their signature was valid, and that can not be invalidated by a subsequent unlawful act. This interpretation might be enough to qualify the Alliance Party if 128 or more of the cross-over signers had signed the Alliance petition first.
I have not located the court opinion to understand their interpretation.
Where is that MODEL ELECTION LAW [with ALL the options] ???
needed since 1776 and esp since 1964-1968.
The petition has a voter’s oath that says “I have not signed another nominating petition for this election year”
A signer who signed a second petition has signed a false oath FOR THAT PETITION, and the signature should be disqualified. I doubt that this is perjury, without proof of intent.
I see no reason to disqualify the first signature. The voter had not signed any petition at that instant.
If paid petitioners were being used who were maximizing their income by carrying multiple boards and getting voters to sign two or three petitions at the same location on the same date, there would be no way to determine which one was signed first. The petitions may very well ask for the date signed, but they certainly don’t require time stamps… or do they?
It’s a ridiculous law. As a voter, I want the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Alliance Party, American Solidarity Party, Constitution Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Socialist Workers Party on the ballot, so why should I not be allowed to sign multiple petitions?
The people who worked as paid petition signature gatherers really screwed up big time here. No petition drive where I played a big role has ever failed. One thing I always do is look up the laws regarding the petition drive for whatever the jurisdiction is. If it said it on the freaking petition that a WA voter can only sign for one candidate for each office, the paid signature gatherers have no excuse here.
Yeah, it is a bad law, but they knew what the law was. Washington is a high population state, and the signature requirement is only 1,000 valid. I have gathered petition signatures in WA 5 times myself. It is not that hard there.
It is blatantly obvious that the same petition signature gathers worked all three of those petitions together. They may have even had some coordinator above them who lined it up, who was taking overrides off of all three of the petitions. They were maximizing their money, and either did not know, or did not care, what the law said. There is really no excuse here if it said it on the freaking petition. Did they not bother to read the petitions they were circulating, or did they read them, and just not care.
Washington is the same state that, after the 2016 election, chose to count total write-in votes(although not by candidate) which they had never done before in order to push the vote total high enough that Gary Johnson would fall under 5% and the LP would not get recognition as a party.
https://extranewsfeed.com/kim-wyman-is-cheating-the-washington-libertarian-party-9216da731874
It used to be the case in Massachusetts that if someone signed more than one petition, only the signature on the earliest filed petition counted. In 1992, the law was changed as part of a broader inititative petition on election reform, that a voter may sign as many nomination petitions as he or she may choose to sign.
I agree that it is a bad law in Washington, but they knew what the law was, and therefore, they should have been prepared for it.
Challenging the law is a separate issue.
Always keep in mind its the spirit of any law that counts. In this case, the more parties on the ballot the better. Voters deserve fair choices on the ballot. Therefore, the Court is wrong for having the one signature rule unless the goal of the Court or State is to minimize parties on the ballot so the two party system is the only choice for voters and one of those parties will always win without
any interference from minor parties..
It appears that one group of paid petitioners was carrying several petitions at once. If so, they should have known better.
Yeah, especially considering that it says it on the freaking petition that a WA voter can only sign for one candidate for each office.
I have to agree with Andy. The petitioners should have known the law. Whether the law is good, bad or indifferent is another matter. If one equates signing a petition to voting in a primary election then signing only one petition seems reasonable.
For some reference: The language on West Virginia’s petitions regarding signers not being permitted to vote in the primary was removed as the result of a Libertarian Party lawsuit, circa 2006. However, WV petitions still have the words “Nomination Petition” in the heading. By affixing their signature, they agree to the following: “This is to certify that we, the undersigned, are registered voters of ________ county, who reside within the jurisdiction of the office each candidate named below is seeking.” Straightforward and simple. No restrictions on multiple “nominations.”
Signing a petition to place a candidate on the ballot is NOT the same thing as voting, and mandating that people can’t sign petitions for more than one candidate for each office limits voter’s options, and puts an undue burden on the candidates. So it is definitely a bad law, in my opinion.
Regardless, they knew what the law was, so they should have been prepared to deal with it.
Given that I think a party should be allowed to use approval voting in its own primary, if it so chooses, then it seems perfectly reasonable to allow voters to sign for more than one candidate’s petition for an office. It’s analogous to approval voting.
One person Voter nom pet forms.
Voters supposedly know each State’s election laws the same as ALL other State civil/criminal laws
— standard major judic fiction.
Washington should use Top 2 for presidential elections eliminating the need for partisan nominations or party qualification.
Top One is FAR more efficient!
It is my understanding that the ‘top level’ petitioner knew the rules and requirements.
At this point, it appears that it was second-level petitioner(s) that may-have-been carrying multiple petitions.
It remains to be seen exactly how the signatures are related.
Was it one individual? or a team?
Were they regular petitioners, who simply screwed up (or didn’t care)?
Or, was it more sinister and underhanded?
Only time will tell.
In any case, it is truly unfortunate, as the CP of WA submitted well in excess of the required number of signatures. So it appears that the duplication was in the 100’s
Jim, while it is true that the voter has not violated their oath on the ‘first petition’. How would you determine which one was first, given that they might sign 3 petitions from the same petitioner on the same day?
And one party may ‘file’ prior to another party, but their petitions have have actually been the ‘last’ to be signed.
If the signatures were on different dates, then you could make the case that the first one could be identified.
The court should probably have thrown out the law as an unconstitutional violation of free speech. I don’t see any constitutional basis for limiting the number of people you can ‘nominate’ for an office as long as your ultimate vote is restricted to one. But, in lieu of that, their ruling to throw out all of the signatures doesn’t seem completely irrational.