According to this story, both Republicans and Democrats in the Ohio legislature may strike a deal, in which the proponents of the November 2012 election law referendum would voluntarily remove their referendum from the ballot. The 2011 omnibus election law bill, passed by Republican legislators over Democratic and labor union opposition, is currently set for a popular vote on whether to repeal it. Republicans believe the law probably will be repealed, so this year the Republican majority has been trying to repeal the law in the legislature so as to avoid a popular vote.
So far, Democrats have been insisting that the referendum should take place, but now it seems somewhat likely that both sides will agree to cancel the popular vote.
The 2011 omnibus election law bill contains many provisions that anger Democrats and labor unions. A part of the bill that gets overlooked by the media and most political observers is the part of the bill that attempted to create a constitutional ballot access law. The existing law was ruled unconstitutional in 2006 by the Sixth Circuit. The 2011 legislature attempted to write a new law that would pass constitutional muster, and it seems that new law is doomed, and Ohio will continue to have no constitutional ballot access law for minor parties in place.
NO longer possible to have ANY election law changes — other than by having the R word ??? YIKES.
Ohio should stop requiring that minor parties nominate by primary, which is the crux of the problem. Despite what Judge Marbley thinks, an election takes considerable time to pull off, particularly when Congress requires some ballots to be sent out 45 days in advance.
You also have to have a filing period in which candidates for nomination may need to collect signatures, plus time to count the qualification signatures, and time to collect them, more than a year before the general election.
Ohio should adopt the Texas system, where qualification and nomination are concurrent – qualification is based on participation in the nominating process, and minor parties nominate by convention.
Voters could affiliate with a party by actually participating in a nominating convention or primary or signing a petition. Since Ohio conducts its primaries, and may include non-partisan races, a voter could affiliate with a minor party at the primary, and then be handed a non-partisan primary ballot, and a notice of the time and place of nominating conventions for the party.
Ohio should discard its notion of permanent affiliation, since most voters only participate in primaries, and can readily switch at each election. Any sort of loyalty oath is totally unenforceable, either practically or constitutionally. All the current law does is provide gotchas for subsequent elections when a signature-gatherer is found to be from the wrong party.
Since registration is tied to precincts, party qualification could be done on a statewide, county, township, or district basis, with a threshold of 1% of participants in the nominating process. Around 1.5 million Ohioans voted in the March primary, so the minor parties would need about 15,000 voters to qualify statewide, but around 1000 to qualify in a congressional district.
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