Last month, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party each submitted a petition to be on the Maryland ballot in 2012 and 2014. The law requires 10,000 valid signatures. Both petitions were recently found insufficient by the State Board of Elections. However, the Board has agreed not to automatically convert all the registered members of those parties to independent voters.
The two parties are planning to file a lawsuit in state court very soon, over the standards for checking signature validity. The Board used a standard that rejects all signatures if the form of the name on the petition is not an exact match for the name on the voter registration records. For example, if a signer uses a middle initial, but that middle initial does not appear on the voter registration record (or vice versa), the signature is invalid.
It is likely that the lawsuit will win. Recently, the State Appeals Court (the highest state court in Maryland) ruled that signatures that are illegible are valid, assuming the printed name and address match the voter registration record. The same logic that won that case should apply to the parallel issue involved in the new lawsuit.
Is their any other minor parties on the ballot in maryland?
No. The Green, Constitution, and Libertarian Parties all appeared on the November 2010 ballot in Maryland. None of them got enough votes to remain on, and so all went off the ballot. The Constitution Party has not done its 2012/2014 petition in Maryland yet.
So the constitution party could still get on?
What was the first day in which the ANTI-Democracy Donkeys/Elephants had separate and UN-equal ballot access laws in ANY State ???
The petition deadline for the 2012 election is in August, 2012. There is loads of time yet for any party to petition in Maryland.
The Constitution Party has started its petitioning in Maryland, but we simply did not attempt to meet the March 2011 deadline for keeping the voter lists. Unlike the LP and the GP we did not petition before and during the 2010 campaign. We did hope to secure the necessary 1% in the Governors race to maintain ballot position. It didn’t work out this time, but we will be back on in 2012. We have never not made a Presidential election in Maryland (as far as I know—possibly ’92) and we certainly intend to be back on in 2012.
Please go to http://www.constitutionparty.com/view_states.php?state=MD or http://www.constitutionpartymd.com for more information regarding the Constitution Party and Maryland including upcoming meetings.
Thank you.
Michael Bertocchi
Rockville, Maryland
301-814-2005
Marylanders for Constitutional Governance: An Association of the Constitution Party of Maryland
Fmr. Constitution Party of MD Secretary ’11, Vice Chairman ’10 & ’09, and Interim Vice Chairman ’08