On September 13, the Libertarian Party and the Socialist Party filed a lawsuit to get their presidential candidates on the Louisiana ballot. Libertarian Party et al v Dardenne. Lawsuits can be filed on weekends in some U.S. District Courts, via electronic filing. The case number is not known yet. Both parties were late filing their presidential electors. The lawsuit argues that since the Secretary of State’s office was closed the week of September 2-5, and since the state has postponed its congressional primary until October, due to hurricanes, the state should also have extended the filing deadline. The state did permit filing on September 8, but did not post this notice on its web page. The Libertarian filing was on September 10 and the Socialist filing was on September 11.
is ted weill in on this lawsuit?
No. But I believe that if the case wins, the Reform Party will also get on the Louisiana ballot. The Reform Party is in the same position as the other two parties.
Richard, how good do you think their chances are? Is there any kind of precedent related to hurricane/flooding forcing delays in ballot access deadlines?
There are precedents in which states relaxed legal petition deadlines because of weather. That happened in the 2006 primary deadline for Pennsylvania, due to a blizzard. But that isn’t a court precedent; it’s just a precedent about what the Governor of Pennsylvania did. And since Louisiana delayed its congressional primary by four weeks, it seems silly that the state didn’t show similar flexibility for presidential filings.
So one would assume fairly decent chances at leniency from a judge….of course, bad things can happen when one assumes. Thanks!
So is Ted [with his illegal bus load of employees from Mississippi] and McNulty [still running for President in other states………..duh] on in Mississippi and Louisiana ???? He is now on the Reform Party of Kansas ballot, even tho no one north of the Oklahoma border can stand him.
The Kansas SoS dumped Baldwin, the RfP of Kansas preference, and replaced them with Weill – McNulty! Some where Hilter and Stalin are getting the last laugh! Remember, 21st Century American democracy often means getting ONE MORE candidate than Nazi Germany and the Soviet ‘Union’.
May be the Kansas state election official can be loaned out to China on a demostration project?
What troubles me most, is that I stumbled across this while working on a speech on some of the third party candidates- I live in Louisiana, and I could not find *one* news article about this (my speech professor doesn’t want me using online sources) and the articles I did find on who qualified for the ballot did not include any Presidential candidates.
Moore appears to have gotten in trouble in Missippi and Wisconsin for not filing papers correctly.
Wisconsin gave him a break – Presidential Candidate Brian Moore and Vice-Presidential candidate Stewart Alexander both submitted Declarations of Candidacy (DOC) to our office on September 2, 2008. Sufficient nomination paper signatures were also received at that day. Mr. Alexander’s DOC, though substantially complete, was missing some information. Per GAB policy, and as with correctable errors to nomination papers, he was allowed until the end of the nomination paper challenge period (4:30 p.m. on September 5th) to remedy the deficiency, which he did. I hope this answers your questions
ME – I am in favor of having third party and independents on the ballot. Hopefully your policy of leniency would be extended to some one who has 1900 signatures and would be given three more days. Also to other paperwork snafu’s if they attempt to file on time. Laws or rules need to have some flexibility. Thank You for your understanding.
Wisconsin – There is some room for leniency, provided the candidate has filed “something.” However, in the case of simply not having enough signatures, there is no leniency. In a case where there would be enough signatures except for some techinical errors, rehabilitation of the signatures can be done by affidavit of circulator
He can’t be at a press conference with a Green, a CPer, an independent and a Republican – but he can join forces with a Socialist for ballot access?