On March 11, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that the petition to put a new political party on the ballot, 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, does not violate the State Constitution. Here is the 17-page opinion, and the 9-page dissent. For 2012, the law requires 85,379 signatures. Except in California and Florida, there is no instance in U.S. history in which any political party, or independent candidate, has ever overcome a signature petition requirement that high.
The decision seems to assume, without any discussion, that the State Constitutional provision “All elections shall be free” (Article I, section 10) doesn’t give any more protection for ballot access than the U.S. Constitution does. Nor does the decision discuss the North Carolina Constitutional provision that says “Every qualified voter, except as in this Constitution disqualified, shall be eligible for election by the people to office.” The decision depends on the unfavorable ballot access decisions that the U.S. Supreme Court has issued over the last 40 years, not on decisions of the North Carolina Supreme Court that interpret the State Constitution.
The decision erroneously implies that many other states do not let primary voters sign a petition for a new party. The decision mentions an Ohio election law that refers to petitions to place a candidate on a party’s primary ballot, and says that Ohio is therefore a state in which only party members may sign a petition to place a party on the ballot. This is a factual error. The decision also mentions that California once wouldn’t let primary voters sign for an independent candidate, but that has nothing to do with petitions to create a new party; furthermore California abandoned that restriction in 1976. Texas is the only state in the nation that won’t let primary voters sign a new party’s petition. Thanks to Mike Munger for the link.
Well it looks like our job just got a little harder. All the more reason we need our legislators to do the right thing!
“Texas is the only state in the nation that won’t let primary voters sign a new party’s petition.”
Texas has that law on the books, but is it actually being enforced? When I worked on ballot access in Texas in 2004, the state LP sent us a link to state website that we could use to check our own validity, which I used to check several hundred signatures. We were told that this was the same website that the actual state employees use to check the petition when it is turned in.
I did not see a data field in that database that indicated whether a voter had participated in the primaries.
Thus, either this was not in fact the database used to check the actual turn-in, or the primary screen out in Texas is only theoretical.
Getting back to NC, how do the chances of any relief from the legislature look?
I’m pretty sure that Texas does check to see if petition signers voted in the primary. Anyone who worked on the Texas 2010 Green Party petition might provide details.
The North Carolina legislators seemed willing to ease the number of signatures, in recent committee hearings. Maybe someone who was at those hearings can tell us more, but I have a feeling the legislators weren’t thinking about the court case at all. The case was filed in 2005 and hasn’t had that much publicity.
What century will ANY ballot access so-called lawyer have ANY brains about
Separate is NOT equal.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954 ???
Ballot access cases have been TOTALLY screwed up by MORON lawyers since 1968 — resulting in those
***unfavorable ballot access decisions that the U.S. Supreme Court has issued over the last 40 [43] years***
#4, About every two years or so, I publicly point out that you once filed your own ballot access constitutional cases, and they didn’t win. And I feel it is rude for you to constantly attack all other attorneys who work hard on ballot access litigation. Because of you, I did once read Brown v Board of Education, and it has nothing in it to help ballot access lawsuits. It is a surprisingly short and surprisingly devoid of legal analysis. It is very result-oriented. The U.S. Supreme Court wanted to get rid of segregated public schools, and they cited social science evidence on the impact of segregated schools on racial minorities, and that was about all that was in there.
Hey if your lawyer isn’t willing to make a point of NC Constitution Article VI Section 6 we are certainly willing to ignore it. You asked about the rights of political parties not the rights of voters. Just more bad precedent.
In order to secure these rights govts are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The Supreme Courts authority in North Carolina is entirely based on the citizens authority at the ballot. When the supreme court repudiates Art VI Sec 6 they repudiate their own authority. They do not act in my name or with my consent. I declare them frauds.
Mr. Bailey, I agree wholeheartedly.
As for the meetings on the Electoral Freedom Act. The legislators seems to be fine with a 1/4% for New Parties and Statewide Unaffiliated candidates and 1/2% for all lower offices (out of what pool of voters is not entirely certain yet). However we have run into resistance on the Election Committee from legislators who are simply anti-free choice, and actually have said it. So it looks more promising than the court case I think, I hope.
Pingback: Ballot Access News – North Carolina Supreme Court Upholds 2% Petition Requirement for Ballot Access for Minor Parties | Free the Vote North Carolina
# 5 The courts went brain dead in the early 1970s about ballot access — the 1971 Jenness disaster and continue to be so.
LOTS of losing cases about segregation in 1896-1954 before Brown v. Bd of Ed happened.
How is public ballot access different from public school access ???
Was the Equal Protection Clause written in part to protect Elephant folks in the rebel States in 1860-1865 who had risked their lives, liberties and property to defend the Union ???
How about reading the TWO main speeches regarding the 14th Amdt in 1866 — one H.Reps, one Senate ???
Esp the H.Reps. speech — by THE leader of the Elephant *radicals*.
#10, All your post do are work to to discourage and irritate, they sadly have no helpful purpose. We expect to see them, though I imagine most of us wish we didn’t have too. Try to be constructive please.
The H.Reps. speech was by Rep. Thaddeus Stevens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens
http://www.civilwarhome.com/stevensbio.htm
Compare his lifetime works in the destruction of slavery with the New Age mini-brain party hacks in the gerrymander Congress.
Note – even the party hacks in the 38th Congress (1863-1865) failed to note that by abolishing slavery that the ex-slave States would gain a higher percentage control of the H.Reps – i.e. 3/5 slave = 5/5 free person.
Thus the MAJOR attention in 1866 in the speeches about Sec. 2 of the 14th Amdt. — infamously ignored by armies of moron lawyers and judges since 1868.
Texas like most states does not let voters participate in the nomination activities of more than one political party or indeed in the nomination of more than one candidate for an office. Texas also expects nomination for public office to be made by bodies of voters, either organized in political parties, or on an ad hoc basis to support an individual candidate run independently of a political party.
Texas also does not require parties to prequalify their nomination activities. But instead lets political parties count the participants in the nominating conventions, and if there are a sufficient number, then the nominees made by the party are placed on the general election ballot. Texas does permit voters who did not participate in precinct conventions of a party attempting to qualify, but who would have been eligible to do so, to sign a supplementary petition, which can be used to augment the convention rosters when determining qualification.
# 11 — The EVIL party hacks have built up a political timebomb since 1776 especially with the —
1. Unequal ballot access laws.
2. Minority rule gerrymanders.
3. Plurality nominations.
4. Plurality elections.
5. Party hacks elected to top executive and judicial offices.
6. Party hacks appointed to be judges – esp. Fed. judges.
This list has to WAKE UP zillions of sleeping folks — before it is too late.
#3 Texas is mainly concerned with cross-over voters between the primary and the primary runoff. Primary elections in Texas are conducted by the political parties in each county. Since they are conducted in accord with state law, and often use county election equipment and services, and may be conducted by county elections officials, and early voting is conducted by the counties, it can appear that they are public elections.
The county election officials supply the voter registration lists to the political parties for each precinct, and each precinct judge is required to file the list of participants with the county party, the county election officials, and the person conducting the precinct convention (which is held the night of the primary). The (signed) voter roll is also held by county election officials for the remainder of the year.
Before the primary runoff, the county election officials distribute new voter rolls which indicate which primary a voter participated in to parties conducting the runoff.
Rosters of precinct convention participants are kept by the county parties, and are public records, but I don’t see any requirement for sharing these records with county election officials. There are also other affiliating acts such as signing a petition for a candidate to be on the primary ballot. There are probably enough signatures involved that you could attempt prosecution, or if there were a close primary election that someone willing to do the searching could find out if any voters participated in a Libertarian Party precinct convention. It is only in close elections that you actually discover all kinds of odd and curious happenings.
Statewide databases of voter registrations are pretty new (I think they are a HAVA requirement). I know that there has been some issues of integration of county databases into the state database, with some counties preferring to make updates, rather than directly entering into the state database. For smaller counties that have applications in the handfuls, it may be easier to simply enter the application online, and not have to have a county database in electronic form. For larger counties, it may be easier to stick with a counties own procedures.
The method by which the SOS checks signatures (for statewide and district offices) is not really spelled out in the law. There really is no reason for statewide records of party affiliation, and before there was a statewide database, these might have been delegated to county officials.
Wow. This is very sad. North Carolina’s ballot access law makes it very difficult for third parties to get on the ballot. NC requires more petition signatures than any other state except California. Voters have never been allowed to vote for Ralph Nader (whom I normally would not support because of his radical views, except in the case of ballot access), except by casting a write-in vote. This is true of only three other states.
This just goes to show that the 5 justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court who voted for this are completely blind.
Hopefully, this case will be brought up again and will eventually be struck down by the NC Supreme Court.
OK. I worked in the 2010 Green Party campaign. In fact, I filed against the leader of the “flat earth” faction that constrolled the State Board of Education. He got defeated in the Republican primary, and I got a total media blackout including the Dallas Morning News saying there were only Republicans and Libertarians running. I sent a correction, so they repeated it verbatim two weeks later. At least the League of Women Voters let me on their voter’s guide.
In the course of the campaign, I collected petition signatures. Before sending them in, I went to the Fannin County Courthouse and had each one checked for eligibility. None had voted in a primary, although one was discarded for not being a citizen! Yes we do check, because the Secretary of State does too, and our reputation is high with them because we do.
Also, Texas requires 5% of the total vote to get on the ballot, and one of that party’s candidates for statewide office to get 5% or more of the vote for the party to stay on for the next election. Greens did, so now there is a bill in what Molly Ivins called “the only lege we’ve got” to demand a half million dollar fee to be on the ballot if a party selects by convention, or pay the same amount to hold a primary.
Thus endeth freedom in the USA. A nibble at a time has now become a gulp.
#16 Just so you will know, the case that the post talks of was one that the NC Supreme Court decided, so as far as I know there is no further redress for this particular case. Something could be brought up later though, but hopefully the legislature will take action instead.
# 18 Asking the incumbent party hacks for ballot access reforms is like asking Hitler to stop killing folks in 1942 or asking J. Davis to free the slaves in 1862.
Try and get some lawyers in NC with some Brown v. Bd of Ed brain cells.
In connection with the 2 main speeches — see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)
The 14th Amdt was a major effort to prevent the horrific Civil War from resuming.
i.e. the northern folks were NOT amused by the EVIL Black Codes in the 1865-1866 Lincoln-Johnson reconstructed party hack regimes in the ex-slave States — who thought they could resume business- as- usual after Prez. Lincoln was killed in Apr 1865.
How many parties (if any) had ballot access problems in the 1866- 1868- 1870- 1872- 1874- 1876 reconstruction regimes ???
#19, We have another lawsuit going on in NC, but I agree with Winger, your Brown v. Board of Education (while it may sound like an idea) isn’t going to do it either. We must take all routes we can to get the law brought down, and legislation in the state house is one way. There are legislators who see the issue in both parties, they aren’t all “party hacks.” What we really need is to be able to show people in the general populace the issue and why it should be a priority. However, that is one thing that is nearly harder to do it seems than get the law changed, though I think slowly they are coming around.
Pingback: North Carolina Supreme Court Upholds 2% Petition Requirement for Ballot Access for Alternative Parties | Independent Political Report
Pingback: North Carolina Supreme Court Upholds 2% Petition Requirement for Ballot Access for Alternative Parties | Daily Libertarian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal
What is the problem with lots of folks on this list about the EQUAL Protection Clause in 14th Amdt, Sec. 1 ???
TOTAL ignorance or something else ???
What percentage of the gerrymander members of the NC legislature are NOT robot party hacks ???
Report to this list ASAP.