Socialist Workers Party Suffers Exclusion from the Florida Ballot Because it was Too Forthcoming

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The Socialist Workers Party presidential ticket is not on the Florida ballot this year, because the party said in an August 23 letter to the Florida Secretary of State that the party is not recognized by the Federal Election Commission as a “national committee.” In 2011, the Florida legislature had passed a law saying qualified parties cannot be on the ballot for President unless (1) they are recognized by the FEC as a “national committee”; (2) or, they submit a petition signed by 1% of the registered voters, which would be 112,174 valid signatures.

However, last year, the Florida Secretary of State told Americans Elect that the Secretary of State has no official knowledge of which parties are recognized by the FEC as a national committee, and therefore the state would not enforce the FEC recognition rule. So, if the SWP has merely said nothing to the Secretary of State about its status with the FEC, its presidential ticket would now be on the Florida ballot.

An attorney for the SWP, Michael Krinsky, wrote a letter to the Secretary of State, making arguments why the FEC recognition rule should not be imposed. However, he did not mention the best argument. That argument is that the FEC will not recognize a new party as a “national committee”, but will only grant that recognition after a party has gone through one federal election. It is true the FEC recognized the Natural Law Party in October 1992, just prior the the Natural Law Party’s going through its first federal election. But the FEC only did that because the Natural Law Party confirmed the large number of congressional candidates it had placed on the ballot in 1992, and that could not have been done in time for the party to have qualified for the Florida ballot, if the existing law had existed back then.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Williams v Rhodes, and also in Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb (concurring opinion of four justices) that states cannot discriminate against new parties, relative to old parties. Therefore, the Florida election law relating to FEC recognition is unconstitutional, and cannot be enforced.

Another reason the FEC standard is unconstitutional is that the FEC has utterly no objective standards for deciding what a party must do to be recognized as a “national committee.” In 1975 it recognized the Libertarian Party, even though the party’s presidential candidate had appeared on the ballot in only two states in 1972, and the party had congressional candidates on the ballot in only one state in 1972 and only in four states in 1974. In December 1980 the FEC recognized the Socialist Party even though its presidential nominee had been on the ballot in only seven states and the party had congressional candidates on the ballot in only two states. But in 1998 the FEC refused to recognize the Green Party, even though it had placed its presidential nominee in 1996 on the ballot in 23 states (and that candidate had placed fourth in the election), and even though it had congressional candidates on the ballot in eight states.

Montana Restrictive Law on Write-in Nominations Keeps Republican Off Ballot for One Partisan Statewide Race

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Montana voters elect a Clerk of the Supreme Court every six years, in a partisan election. The long-time incumbent, Ed Smith, a Democrat, is running for re-election this year. Generally no Republican runs for this office.

In 2006, there were three candidates on the ballot for this office: the incumbent; a Constitution Party nominee; and a Libertarian. The vote for the Constitution nominee in 2006 was 86,027 votes (24.74%), and the vote for the Libertarian was 37,972 (10.92%). This year again, no Republican filed in the primary for that office, and the Constitution Party is no longer on the ballot. But Mike Fellows, a Libertarian, filed and was nominated in the Libertarian primary.

After filing for the primary had closed, the Executive Director of the Montana Republican Party, Bowen Greenwood, filed as a write-in in the June Republican primary. He received 4,400 write-ins. But Montana has a very difficult barrier for write-in candidates to be nominated in a primary. They must not only outpoll any opponent, their write-in total must equal at least 5% of the vote cast in the last general election for the winning candidate. Greenwood needed at least 11,186 write-ins. Therefore, the Republican Party has no nominee. Fellows is running some radio ads and hopes to poll as much as one-third of the statewide vote.

As an aside, it seems somewhat irrational for any state to provide that voters choose the Clerk of the State Supreme Court. As far as is known, the only other state that has elected this position since World War II is Indiana.

California Governor Signs Bill to Let Voters Register on Election Day

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On September 24, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1436, to let voters register at the polls on election day. The bill won’t take effect until either 2014 or 2015. Voters would need to visit a county elections office on election day to register; they could not do so at the neighborhood polls.

California becomes the first large-population state to permit same-day voter registration. Governor Brown also signed many other election law bills on September 24. Here is a list. He has not acted yet on AB 145, which makes it illegal for registration-drive organizations to pay workers on a per-registration card basis. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about AB 1436.

Connecticut Supreme Court Still Hasn’t Decided Which Party Should be Listed First on the Ballot

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At the close of normal business hours in Connecticut, on Monday, September 24, the Connecticut Supreme Court still hasn’t issued any order in Republican Party of Connecticut v Merrill, SC 19010. The hearing was on September 12. It is very odd that the Court hasn’t at least issued a brief order, so that the state can start printing ballots. Sometimes Courts release their conclusion and later they explain why. For example, the Arizona Supreme Court issued its conclusion a few weeks ago that the top-two open primary initiative doesn’t violate the single subject rule, but the Arizona court still hasn’t explained its reasoning.

The issue in the Connecticut case is which party should be listed first on the ballot. Connecticut should consider the idea of giving each candidate and/or each party an equal opportunity to be listed first on the ballot, a policy followed by approximately one-third of the states. The order could be determined either by a random drawing, or by a policy of rotation.

What Percentage of the Voters Will See Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Virgil Goode on their Ballots?

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No one can know exactly how many voters will vote in each state on November 6, 2012. But if one uses the November 4, 2008 election data to estimate how many voters will vote in each state, one can calculate the percentage of voters who will see various presidential candidates on their ballots.

For Gary Johnson (assuming he is on in Pennsylvania, which is likely) the figure will be 95.08%. For Jill Stein, it is 83.10%. For Virgil Goode, it is 49.91%. Corresponding data for all presidential candidates will be in the October 1, 2012 printed Ballot Access News.

The Mystery of Why the New York Independence Party Nominated No one for President

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Until more information appears, the question of why the New York Independence Party chose no presidential nominee for the first time will go unanswered. The New York State Board of Elections had announced that ballot-qualified parties must choose their presidential nominees by September 10. Nevertheless, the New York Independence Party state committee went ahead with a meeting on September 22, and on the agenda for that meeting was the choice of a presidential nominee.

At the Albany meeting, State Chair Frank McKay proposed a resolution that the party not nominate any candidate for President, and that resolution passed. Nothing was said at the meeting, apparently, that at that point it was too late to choose a nominee. See this somewhat more detailed description of the meeting by Michael Drucker, a long-time officer in that party.