Ohio Independent Candidate Asks State Supreme Court to Overrule Secretary of State Directive that Bars Independent Candidates from Ballot if they Voted in Primary

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On July 1, Timothy Quinn, an independent candidate for Mayor of Elyria, Ohio, this year, asked the Ohio Supreme Court to put him on the ballot. The county Board of Elections kept him off because he voted in this year’s Democratic primary. Elyria has partisan city elections. See this story.

Ohio has no law saying that independent candidates must not have voted in a major party primary. The only restriction is contained in 3513.04, and it bars independent candidates if that candidate had run for office in a partisan primary that year. But in 2007, the Ohio Secretary of State issued a directive that also bars independent candidates if they voted in a major party primary. Ohio registration forms do not ask voters to choose a party.

California State Court of Appeals Construes Election Code to Bar Electronic Signatures on Petitions

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On June 30, a California State Court of Appeals construed California’s election code to bar electronic signatures on initiative petitions. Here is the 24-page decision. The case, Ni v Slocum, had been argued on May 10, 2011. The decision depends on the court’s belief that the verb “affix” can’t mean anything but a pen-on-paper signature. Thanks to Mark Scarberry for the link.

Pennsylvania Gets its First Working Families Party Office-Holder

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Several months ago, Michael O’Connor, a township commissioner in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, changed his voter registration to list himself as a member of the Working Families Party. Abington Township is a large township, with a population of 55,310. Township commissioner in Pennsylvania is a partisan office. O’Connor has been a member of the Board since 1995, and in the past he has always been elected as a Democrat.

O’Connor is up for re-election this year, and he intends to seek re-election as the Working Families Party nominee. That almost certainly means the battle for his seat in November 2011 will be a three-cornered race.

The Working Families Party has elected people to municipal and county partisan office in New York and Connecticut, who were not the nominees of any other party. It is never before had any nominees in Pennsylvania. It is ballot-qualified in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, and South Carolina, and was once ballot-qualified in Massachusetts. Generally it doesn’t run its own nominees, and instead cross-endorses Democrats, or, sometimes, Republicans. Generally the party only gets on the ballot in states which permit two parties to jointly run the same nominee.

Idaho Opponents of Closed Republican Primary Fight in Court for a Chance to Appeal Ruling

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In March 2011, a U.S. District Court in Idaho ruled that if the Republican Party doesn’t wish non-members to vote in its primary, it has a freedom of association right to block them from voting in its primary. In response, the legislature then passed a bill, letting all qualified parties decide for themselves who may vote in those parties’ primaries. Although it is widely expected that the Republican Party will pass a bylaw saying only registered Republicans may vote in its primary, the party has not yet formally decided. For the 2012 primary, the new law doesn’t require advance registration with a party, even for parties that do decide to limit their primary to members. Instead, in 2012, a primary voter may decide on the spot (at the polls) whether to affiliate with any particular party.

The lawsuit was Idaho Republican Party v Ysursa. Two groups, the American Independent Movement, and the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, had intervened in the lawsuit before it was decided. After the decision came out, those two intervenors appealed the U.S. District Court decision to the 9th circuit. However, the Republican Party has filed a motion to dismiss their appeal, on the grounds that since the law has changed since the decision came out, the case is moot. It is likely that the 9th circuit will decide fairly quickly whether the intervenors may appeal. The American Independent Movement is a group within Idaho. The Committee for a Unified Independent Party uses that name in court, but nowadays it goes by its newer name, Independent Voting. It is composed primarily of people who were once leaders of the New Alliance Party.

Ohio Secretary of State’s Office Still Won’t Say Whether he Will Remove the Minor Parties from the 2012 Ballot

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Matthew Damschroder, Ohio Director of Elections, still has not decided whether his office will disqualify the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Socialist Parties from the 2012 ballot. However, if he follows the precedent set by former Secretary of State Ted Brown in 1972, he will leave them on the ballot.

In 1970, the Socialist Labor Party won a lawsuit against the Ohio ballot access law for minor parties. That unconstitutional law required a party to submit a petition of 7% of the last gubernatorial vote in order to get on the ballot, and to poll 7% of vote for the office at the top of the ballot in order to remain on the ballot. In response, in 1971 the legislature lowered the petition to 1% of the last vote cast, and lowered the vote test to 5%.

The Socialist Labor Party had not met the new 5% vote test in 1970. It only polled .44% for Governor in 1970. Also in 1970, the American Independent Party only polled 1.93% for Governor. Nevertheless, Secretary of State Ted Brown left the two parties on the ballot for 1972.

In November 2010, none of the ballot-qualified minor parties polled as much as 5% for Governor, nor had they petitioned in 2010. They were on the ballot in 2010, and 2008, because the old ballot access law had been held unconstitutional in 2006, and the legislature had not passed a new law. Therefore, the position of those four modern-day minor parties is perfectly analogous to the sitution in 1972 for the Socialist Labor and American Independent Parties. By precedent, the current Ohio Secretary of State ought to leave the four minor parties on the ballot in 2012.