On October 31, a Utah state court ordered Libertarian Party nominee Mike Stoddard back onto the ballot for State Auditor. The case is Stoddard v Herbert, 3rd judicial district, 080923182.
Utah uses DRE vote-casting machines, so there is no problem with printing ballots; a candidate can be deleted or added to the ballot by a manipulation of the computer program. Of course, absentee mail voters use a paper ballot, but here again there was no problem, because the absentee ballots had been printed with Stoddard’s name on them. If he had not won the case, though, absentee voters who voted for him would have not had their votes counted.
Stoddard had been removed from the ballot on October 28 because he didn’t file a final campaign finance report. But he immediately filed the report, and then won the lawsuit on the basis that the law, although ambiguous, seems to say that when candidates file late, they should not be stricken from the ballot. Thanks to Rob Latham for this news.
Too bad these guys weren’t the attorneys for the Barr campaign! From what I had heard this was another “impossible” case. It’s great to have a win here!
Joe
The difference here is more likely that this is a ruling that would be binding on the Ds and Rs as well. They wouldn’t want to set a precendent that would require removing a member of the duopoly from the ballot in a similar circumstance.
“Judge puts candidate back on ballot,” Salt Lake Tribune, November 1, 2008
“Candidate put back on ballot,” Deseret News, November 3, 2008