Illinois Green Party Ballot Access Lawsuit Hearing November 23

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An Illinois Circuit Court in Chicago will hear Schmidt v State Board of Elections on Wednesday, November 23. This is the case over whether the Green Party is automatically still a qualified party in the four U.S. House districts, and the four State house districts, in which it polled over 5% in November 2010.

Illinois law lets parties that are not ballot-qualified statewide be ballot-qualified in jurisdictions in which the party polled at least 5% of the vote in the last general election. However, some Illinois election officials say when a district changes boundaries, even to a miniscule extend, that qualified status disappears.

Lawsuit Filed over Which Voters Can Vote in Guam Plebescite

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The Guam government is planning on holding a plebescite soon over whether Guam should be an independent country, a state, or “free association”, which presumably means the status quo. On November 22, a Guam resident who is a U.S. citizen filed a lawsuit against the restrictions that say the only voters who can register to vote in this election are those who received U.S. citizenship as a result of the passage of the 1950 Organic Act of Guam, and their descendants. Here is the 10-page complaint. The case is Davis v Guam and Guam Election Commission, cv-11-00035.

Roughly speaking, the Guam residents who received citizenship as a result of the 1950 Organic Act of Guam were the Chamorro people, the island’s inhabitants before the island was discovered by Spanish explorers. The lawsuit argues that the limit on who can vote in the upcoming plebescite violates the 15th amendment. The Guam government points out that people of other ethnic groups also were covered by the 1950 Organic Act, and some Chamorro people were not covered by the 1950 Act. Justin Raimondo has this commentary about the lawsuit at antiwar.com.

Missouri Presidential Primary Filing Closes

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November 22 was the deadline for presidential candidates to file in Missouri’s February 7 presidential primary. See here for the list of candidates. The Republican presidential primary is only a “beauty contest”, with no direct impact on which delegates are chosen. Republican delegates are chosen at March caucuses.

The Libertarian and Constitution Party presidential primaries are also non-binding. No one filed for the Constitution Party primary, and James Ogle is the only person who filed in the Libertarian primary. Ballot access required a fee of $1,000.

Only four names are on the Democratic presidential primary ballot: President Obama, Darcy Richardson, Terry Randall, and John Wolfe.

Newt Gingrich did not file, and his campaign has not responded to questions from major newspapers asking why he didn’t file.

Florida Secretary of State Office Will Finish Re-Qualifying Parties by November 28

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The Florida Secretary of State’s office has been reviewing the paperwork of each qualified political party, to see if each party meets the new procedures for qualification. The biggest change is that each party must have at least three statewide officers, who must be registered members of that party who live in Florida. Here is the sample checklist for each party. This particular one relates to the Reform Party, which has recently been approved.

The Secretary of State expects to finish this process by November 28. Thanks to David Collison for the link.

David Brooks Suggests a New “Third Force” May Emerge

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The November 22 New York Times has this column by David Brooks, which, at the very end, suggests that the emergence of a new strong political party in the United States would be beneficial. The main point of the column is that neither the Republican Party, nor the Democratic Party, enjoys the confidence of a majority of the electorate. The column points out that throughout almost of the 20th century, either the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, did enjoy support from a majority of the voters, and that party would be the governing party, or, in his analogy, the “sun party”.

Georgia Elections Advisory Council Recommendations Likely to be Released in Next Five Weeks

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On January 27, 2010, Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp announced the creation of the Elections Advisory Council, which was to hold hearings around the state and seek citizen input on improvements to the election laws. The Council’s report is expected sometime in the next five weeks. There is some reason for cautious optimism that the recommendations will include easing Georgia’s ballot access laws.

The Georgia ballot access laws for statewide office are so severe that no one has succeeded in using the minor party statewide petition since 1996, and no one has succeeded in using the statewide independent petition since 2000. The requirements for minor parties and independent candidates for U.S. House are so difficult, no one has ever used them since they were toughened in 1964. Even during the period 1943-1964, when the petition was 5%, but the state did not check the signatures, did not require a filing fee, did not require notarization, and had an October deadline, no minor party candidate for U.S. House ever qualified.