On May 10, U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel ruled against Texas independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Strayhorn. Yeakel said nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires the state to use random sampling, instead of checking all the signatures. Strayhorn v Williams, A-06-CA-205. Strayhorn had sued because the Secretary of State had initially said the job of checking all her signatures might take him until July or August. Strayhorn had argued that her campaign would be hurt if she weren’t officially on the ballot until then.
After the decision came out, Strayhorn claimed a moral victory, because now the Secretary of State says, even without random sampling, he will finish verifying the signatures in 4 or 5 weeks.
The court decision didn’t address the separate issue of whether it is constitutional for the state to forbid turning in additional signatures, after the first batch has been turned in.
Williams says 4-5 weeks, but lets see what actually happens. I predict “problems” will be announced.
They did not count every signature when Buchanan turned in his in 2000. They are breaking their own precedent. They are so political that it is sickening.
Considering that statistical sampling rejected roughly one-third of all signatures in the 2004 ballot access petition reviews in Texas, I’m inclined to prefer line-by-line validation. I mistrust statistical sampling for the simple reason that statistics may be adjusted to suit the wishes of the person using them.
In 2004, the Texas Libertarians turned in 82,000 signatures, and the SOS did use sampling (they sampled only 448 signatures), but it still took 6-7 weeks for verification. Hmm.
Here is the problem with statistical samping in this case (two independent for Governor). You must first know who all the persons are who signed each petition ballot to make sure they didn’t sign both. There is no way to statistically sample that. You can sample off of the voter rolls/voting rolls because they are known. Strayhorn is an idiot. “Sampling” and “line-by-line” can BOTH be skewed for a person’s benefit. Texas election law is not precise with petitions and how they were signed and collected.
There is a major problem when you do not follow your own precedent. This is not the first time two people or groups sought ballot access in the same year.
I agree with you on the sampling precedent, but it is the first time for two statewide indpendent candidates have turned in enough petition signatures to warrant a cross-check. And I can’t remember the last time in Texas that two minor parties turned in a petition the same year. Greens got on in 2000 via petition, but lost ballot access after 2002 elections. Libertarians I think were already on in 2000, but then lost ballot access after that election. Then Libertarians petitioned in 2004 to get on the ballot and stayed on with +5% in a statewide race. Greens didn’t submit enough signatures in 2004 to get on. I am sure I’ll get corrected, but that is my recollection.
Well the Greens and Reform Party both gathered signatures in 2000. One of the (first) reasons Buchanan lied to the Texas Reform Party and did not go forward with the party petition. I am glad you agree with me on the precedent. To be diplomatic, I also understand what you are saying.
If the Secretary of State thinks it will take to long to check every signature, which is the only way to know for sure if the requirement is met, then why not push to relax the requirement. Random sampling should not be used when a candidate is kept of the ballot. It would be acceptable to use it and put a candidate on the ballot but if it would keep the candidate off the ballot then check all the signatures. It is like counting every vote.
I’m just trying to figure out how the SOS is going to get the signatures verified faster, when they will have to verify about 1,000 times as many signatures as they did for the 2004 Libertarian petition.
Maybe they have fantastic new technologies.
Texas independents/3rd parties have been trying for YEARS to loosen the ballot access restrictions.
I was talking to a guy from Iran recently, my comment was “Iran has the Guardians Council, Texas has ballot access requirements”.
Usually the groups shoot for 2x the number, so they can get around a high failure rate.
(Interestingly a few years ago the idea of hospital districts came up, the legislature set the signature requirement to 100 for that. If its something they want, it gets a token hurdle, if they don’t want it…. they make the state the 45th hardest in the nation).