On July 16, the West Virginia Senate passed SB 2001, a bill to set forth procedures for special elections for U.S. Senate.  The bill passed with only one dissenting vote.

The bill is deficient because it requires independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, to submit the same number of signatures, with the same deadline, as for a regular election.  See the part of the bill on the last page, under 3-10-4a.  Under that heading, see (c)(3), which says, “Groups of citizens having no party organization may nominate candidates in accordance with section 23, article five of this chapter.”   3-5-23 is the part of the current election code governing petitions to get on the November ballot.  It says petitions are due on August 1 (and when August 1 is on a weekend, as it is this year, the petitions are due at the end of July).  But if that deadline is retained in the final bill, and no adjustment is made for the fact that groups would only have had 10 days or so to get the needed 7,024 valid signatures, the procedure would be unconstitutional.

Courts in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, and Wyoming have ruled (or at least granted injunctive relief) that when the normal petitioning time is not available, the number of signatures must be reduced or the deadline must be extended.  Also, there is a West Virginia precedent, Nader 2000 Primary Committee v Hechler, 112 F.Supp.2d 575, in which a U.S. District Court put Ralph Nader on the ballot partly because the legislature in 1999 had increased the number of signatures from 1% to 2% of the last vote cast.  Nader argued successfully that if the legislature was going to double the number of signatures, it should have made the increase effective after 2000, because increasing the requirements in the middle of the two-year petitioning cycle violated due process.  Thanks to Jeff Becker for the news about the State Senate action.