Because of last week’s ruling from the Maryland highest state court, the rules for petition validity are now much more onerous. The Libertarian and Green Parties have been removed from the 2012 ballot because of the ruling, but they have time to get more signatures. The Libertarian Party needs another 2,734 valid signatures, and the Green Party needs another 3,020 signatures.
The effect of the court’s ruling last week has discouraged the Constitution Party, which is now unlikely to even attempt to petition in Maryland this year. The Americans Elect petition submitted this year has enough valid signatures even under the new, super-fussy requirements. The court’s decision invalidates all signatures that don’t perfectly match the style of the voter’s name on the voter registration card. Middle initials, nicknames, shortened forms of first names, all must match.
Just had a strange thought. Do all those folks who had their signature invalidated by the court’s ruling ever get to find out what happened? If these folks registered years ago they may have no idea that they are signing differently than now they were registered.
If the petitions are a matter of public record, it would seem like a good idea for all minor parties to combine forces and do a mailing to those folks. At the least it should cause some public outrage. Even better would be a deluge of people contacting the registrar to update their signatures (which might encourage them to change their rules). Best of all, a potential law suit under the voting rights act claiming that they were disenfranchised by the current rule.
That way it isn’t the minor parties serving their own interests but voters seeking theirs. I would expect more public sympathy for that than for those brought by the parties.
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