U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright will hear oral arguments in Chamness v Bowen on June 13, Monday, at 1:30 p.m., in Los Angeles. This is the lawsuit that challenges two particular details of California’s top-two system: (1) the discriminatory policy on partisan labels on ballots; and (2) and the provision that says that even though write-in space is printed on ballots, no write-ins can be counted for Congress or state office in general elections.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
What alleged disputed *facts* are there in the case ???
i.e. obviously ONLY questions of LAW ???
Again – can there be a *party* having only ONE person in CA ???
— regardless of the particular plaintiff in the C v. B case.
Isn’t the trial set for January 3, 2012?
No judge is going to grant summary judgement based on Gautum Dutta’s tortured interpretation of Elections Code Section 325.
Sane interpretation: If a voter indicates “No Party Preference” on their voter registration application, then it means that voter has “independent status”.
Dutta interpretation: If a voter has “independent status” by virtue of the fact that if they were to have sought office under the old partisan office scheme that no longer exists, they would have had to do so via an “independent nomination”, then it means that the voter must indicate “No Party Preference” when they fill out a voter registration affidavit under the new voter-nominated office scheme.
And even that contortion is based on a misinterpretation of Libertarian Party of California v Eu where the Supreme Court of California found that it was not inaccurate to characterize a nomination made by a large body of voters (10,000+ in the case of congressmen) independently of any party as an “Independent” nomination. Michael Chamness is not the nominee of the Coffee Party, nor an independent body of voters. He, like all the other candidates qualified for the special primary by submitting 40 signatures and paying the filing fee (or submitting additional signatures in lieu of the fee). Nobody checked the affiliation of any of those voters, some may even have been affiliated with major parties (eg Green and Libertarian).
And there is no reason for a court to make a summary judgement in the case of the write-in candidates. The US Supreme Court has upheld a total exclusion of write-in votes (Burdick v Takashi, and the California Supreme Court has upheld an exclusion of write-in votes in an election where voters advanced two candidates to a second election phase (Edelstein).
Ironically, the Dutta brief cites the case of Tom Ammiano, who qualified for a mayoral runoff in San Francisco as a write-in candidate (and appeared on the ballot in the runoff), in the very same election where Michael Edelstein was prevented from receiving write-in votes in the runoff.
In the Edelstein case, San Francisco did not even base their write-in ban on anything in the city charter, but simply an interpretation of a voter’s pamphlet, and may have been contrary to their past practice.
Pingback: Digest for 5/16 | Stuck in a Digital-Haze
Jim Riley never mentions the decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the Minnesota Supreme Court, each of which said “independent” is too significant a term in U.S. politics to be banned from the ballot.
#4 What does my not mentioning the decisions of courts in other States have to do with Gautam Dutta’s convoluted interpretation of Elections Code 325?
Wouldn’t “independent” lose its significance if self-declared partisans such as Michael Chamness were able to use the label? Just because the Coffee Party is not a a major party like the Green and Peace & Freedom parties, does not mean that it is not a party.
Definitely, what a splendid blog and illuminating posts, I definitely will bookmark your site.Have an awsome day!