Gloria La Riva, presidential nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, reports on the situation in New Orleans, in this post dated August 31. She and her campaign manager came to Louisiana to file her ballot access paperwork, and they are now involved in helping with preparations for the storm.

The California Assembly, late on Saturday, August 30, concurred in the Senate amendments to AB 583, so the bill is now through the legislature. It sets up public funding for the Secretary of State’s race in 2014. The voters must vote on the idea, though, in 2010. As noted earlier, the bill requires twice as many qualifying contributions for independent candidates, as for Democrats and Republicans.

Ralph Nader’s success in getting on the Idaho ballot is noteworthy, because this had been one state in which he had never before been on the ballot. There are now only 4 states in which Nader has never been on the ballot: Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana, and Oklahoma.

In the past, and also this year, he will receive write-ins in Georgia, Indiana and North Carolina. Also he got write-ins in Idaho in the past. But Oklahoma prohibits write-in votes, so Oklahoma continues to be the only state in which Nader has never received any votes at all.

The lawsuit filed against Oklahoma this year by Bob Barr, to overturn the ballot access requirements, was filed on July 17. There is still no hearing date. Barr’s attorney, Jim Linger, will make a supreme effort in the next few days to get a hearing date established.

Although that it seems undisputed that both the Republican and Democratic Parties missed the August 26 Texas deadline for filing a certificate naming their presidential and vice-presidential nominees, there are two Texas Supreme Court decisions that say that candidates should not suffer the loss of ballot access due to the mistakes of state party officials. The cases are Davis v Taylor, 930 SW 2d 581, and Bird v Rothstein, 930 SW 2d 586. The first case put a Republican nominee for State Court of Appeals Justice on the November ballot; the second one put a Democratic nominee for state house on the November ballot.

Texas parties play a big role in Texas primary elections. Candidates running for a party nomination file declarations of candidacy with their party, not with any county or state official. Therefore, party officials have serious responsibilities for certifying various kinds of paperwork, and sometimes they make mistakes.

Given the Davis and Bird precedents, it seems plausible that Texas cannot enforce its law that requires unqualified parties to file a notice with the Secretary of State on January 2 of any election year, that it intends to petition later that year. The responsibility to file such a form rests with party officers. If they fail to file the form, but the party later submits a petition and nominates candidates, the candidates ought to be able to use the Davis and Bird precedents, along with any precedent created this year to help John McCain and Barack Obama, to avoid suffering any consequences for the failure to file the form. This policy also raises equal protection problems for the state, relative to independent candidates. In 2004, Ralph Nader submitted his independent presidential petition two weeks late. He submitted it on the more lenient deadline for minor party petitions, but the federal courts upheld the earlier deadline and kept Nader off the ballot.

The Republican Party challenge to Bob Barr’s Pennsylvania ballot position has been moved from September 4 to September 5 (Friday). It will be at 10 a.m. in Courtroom One, Widener Bldg., 1339 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. Experienced election law attorney Sam Stretton will be defending Barr. The objector does not dispute the validity of the statewide Libertarian petition. Instead, he says it was improper to use a stand-in presidential candidate in the period June and July, because by then the Libertarian Party knew who its real presidential candidate would be. But, under that theory, the party would have been stuck with two separate petitions, one listing Rochelle Etzel for president, and another one listing Bob Barr for president. Neither one would have had enough signatures, and there is no procedure for combining two different petitions with different names on them.

Stand-ins are well-recognized in Pennsylvania law. All petitions carry a substitution committee, which has the authority to appoint the new nominee after the stand-in withdraws.

Sarah Palin is a registered Republican. Her husband and her oldest son are also registered voters in Alaska, yet not registered members of any political party. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.