Ballot Access News

According to this Politico story, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman will probably announce on January 19 that he will not run for re-election in 2012. In 2006 he was re-elected as an independent candidate. His 2006 ballot label was “Connecticut for Lieberman Party.” He is one of three sitting U.S. Senators who was last elected even though not the Democratic nor Republican Party nominee. The other two are Lisa Murkowski and Bernie Sanders. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the link.

On January 18, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the State Constitution requires a new election when the Governor leaves office more than a year before his or her term expires. See the 19-page opinion here. The case is State ex rel West Virginia Citizens Action Group v Tomblin, 101494.

The opinion also notes that the election code requires that qualified parties choose their nominees in a special gubernatorial election by convention, not by primary. The decision notes that the legislature may possibly wish to amend that law quickly, if it desires primaries. The Governor will choose the date for the election, but it probably won’t be until the second half of 2011. The decision also strikes down as unconstitutional an election law that seemed to say there should be no special gubernatorial election in cases such as this.

West Virginia is one of the few states that does not elect a Lieutenant Governor. The people who argued against a special election said the President of the State Senate should serve as Governor until the next regularly-scheduled election, which is in November 2012.

On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court revealed that it had decided not to hear Coffield v Kemp, 10-596. This is the case from Georgia that challenges the state’s procedures to get on the ballot as an independent or minor party candidate for U.S. House of Representatives. The state requires a petition signed by 5% of the registered voters. The state also requires that all petition sheets be notarized, that all petitions be collected on over-size paper, and forbids the petition drive to begin until six months before the July petition deadline. Also, candidates must pay a filing fee of 3% of the annual salary, or approximately $5,000. These hurdles, taken together, have existed since 1964 and no one has ever overcome them. An independent had complied with the 5% petition in 1964, before new restrictions passed in 1964 had taken effect. Before the 1964 restrictions passed, the petitions weren’t due until October and were not checked, and did not need to be notarized.

The Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE), the Center for Competitive Democracy, and Free & Equal, had jointly filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the case. Faye Coffield, who filed the case, was an independent candidate for U.S. House in 2008 in Georgia’s 4th district. Because she was unable to get on the ballot, the incumbent, Hank Johnson, a Democrat, was the only name on the ballot that year, in both the Democratic primary and the general election.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not agreed to hear a ballot access case brought by a minor party or independent candidate since 1991, when it accepted Norman v Reed, an Illinois case won by the Harold Washington Party.