As of June 26, all briefs have been filed in the Tenth Circuit in Riddle v Hickenlooper, 13-1108. The issue is a Colorado law that lets individuals give $400 to legislative candidates who were nominated in a primary, but only $200 to legislative candidates who are nominated by petition, by convention, or who carry on write-in campaigns. The U.S. District Court had upheld the law. In effect, the law lets donors give $400 to a Republican or a Democrat, but only $200 to any other candidate.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
There wouldn’t be that problem if Colorado adopted Top 2.
Not necessarily. Just because a state has a top-two system doesn’t mean it treats all candidates equally. Neither California nor Louisiana will let a member of an unqualified party place his or her party label on the ballot (except Louisiana permits that for President).
Do Washington, Louisiana, or California have the type of problems that are being challenged in Colorado?
It is Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s misinterpretation of SB 6 that results in voters with an expressed preference for a nonqualified party not being permitted to have that party preference appear on the ballot.
California’s scheme of party qualification is unworkable unless a voter is permitted to register with a nonqualified party. The Secretary of State regularly reports the aggregate number of voters who have registered a preference for a nonqualified party, as she is required to do so.
Proposition 14 said that existing voter party affiliations would be converted to party preferences, and that SB 6 would implement this. SB 6 converted DTS voters to NPP voters, and all party affiliations to party preferences.
SB 6 explicitly states that the preference expressed on an affidavit of voter registration, is the party preference for the voter and as a candidate. A voter must sign their affidavit to certify that its contents are truthful and correct, subject to perjury charges.
The only way that Bowen’s interpretation is correct is if an affidavit of voter registration is equivalent to a literacy test, which would be illegal, and that only she can comprehend.
Louisiana sets a relatively low threshold for party qualification of 1000 voters, which is 0.035% (about 1/30 of 1%).