On June 18, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Haynes ruled that Tennessee’s law, giving the two largest parties the best spots on the general election ballot, is unconstitutional. He also again struck down the law that requires newly-qualifying parties to submit 40,042 valid signatures (2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote).
Judge Haynes had struck down the number of signatures in the same case, but the Sixth Circuit had remanded the case back to him, and requested that he review the number of signatures again. The Sixth Circuit mentioned that in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld Georgia’s petition requirement of 5% of the number of registered voters. In response, Judge Haynes reaffirmed his original decision, pointing out that Tennessee is obviously not concerned about crowded ballots, because it allows presidential primary candidates to get on the ballot with only 2,500 signatures; and it lets all candidates for other office get on primary ballots with only 25 signatures. Also he mentioned that Tennessee lets independent candidates get on the ballot for President with 275 signatures and independent candidates for all other office only need 25 signatures.
The part of the decision on ballot order of candidates is surely the most thorough court opinion on that subject ever written. The opinion contains an exhaustive report on research on whether ballot access order affects voting behavior.
Since it is so easy for candidates to get on the ballot in Tennessee, it should simply do away with the party qualification scheme entirely.
When is the Tennessee legislature going to finally give in and come up with a reasonable ballot access law?
“Dr. Winger opined.” Good job, Richard!
The offerings of the defense “experts” Donovan and Oppenheimer were awfully weak in comparison, though on page 24 Donovan (probably by his mistake) gave a back-handed plug for Proportional Representation. How in the world did this Judge William J. Haynes, Jr., get on a Federal Court? It is hard to believe that someone like him with common sense and attention to law got appointed and confirmed by Dems. and Reps. to such a high office.
Ballot access reform! All candidates, Republican, Democrat, third party or independent, should go through the same hoops. A filing fee of, say, $1,000 and/or 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
Debate access: All candidates will be invited to all debates, this would help third party candidates, even if they only debate the Republican and Democrat separately.
Campaign finance reform: Only individual contributions from citizens, not unions, special interest groups, corporations, etc. Candidates would be entitled to a % of the public election fund, either 1% or the square root of its party’s vote in the last election (equal to the square root of its party’s popular vote in the last election cycle, if the candidate is backed by a party, or equal to the square root of the last-placed candidate, if the candidate’s an independent)