On January 15, the Sixth Circuit refused to expedite the case Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 14-3030. This is the lawsuit involving whether minor parties should be on the Ohio 2014 ballot. On January 7, 2014, the U.S. District Court had kept the parties on the ballot, and the state had appealed, and asked for expedited handling.
The Sixth Circuit’s action makes it extremely likely that the four minor parties will be on the 2014 ballot, and will have their own primaries this year. It seems obvious that if the Sixth Circuit disagreed with the U.S. District Court order, it would have expedited the case.
What are the chances that the Socialist and Constitution parties will actually have any candidates on the ballot?
Very unlikely on the Socialist Party, and haven’t heard much from the Constitutionalist Party.
Based on the ruling earlier this month, as well as the new law, if either of those parties do not field a governor candidate, they will no longer be recognized in Ohio starting Feb. 6, just by default.
Same with Green Party, but they may have a candidate file. The candidate then needs 2% of the vote in November. We’ll see how that goes.
The LP will definitely have a candidate, and that candidate is strong enough to exceed the vote threshold. With the new law, that would provide the LP with a four year retention on ballot access.
I do not agree that Ohio could remove parties from the 2014 election just because no one files to be on their primary ballot. After all, Ohio permits write-ins in primaries, and theoretically even if no one gets on the Constitution and Socialist Party primaries for Governor, later a write-in candidate in those primaries could emerge.
And aside from that, it doesn’t follow logically that a party could be removed from the general election ballot just because it didn’t have a gubernatorial candidate that same year. That wouldn’t be fair to any nominees that party had for other office.
In Ohio, for a write-in candidate to be nominated, they need to receive a number of votes that would satisfy the petition requirement. A statewide candidate requires 1000 signatures. I think it would be easier to collect 1000 signatures from party voters in past primaries (or independents by virtue of not having voted in the prior primary) rather than
I don’t see the new law applying prospectively to the 2014 general election.
I think the new standard for maintaining party qualification is consistent with the split 2-1 6th Circuit decision in ‘Blackwell.’ That is, it was combination of an early deadline and number of signatures that was flawed.
For small qualified parties, the statewide primary petition, and the write-in minimum vote, are 500, not 1,000.
The December 2013 decision of the US District Court in New Mexico said an early petition deadline is unconstitutional, all by itself. The number of signatures required in New Mexico in 2012 was 3,009, but the April deadline was still unconstitutional.
The Green Party is currently gathering signatures for our Gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Spisak. In 2010, Dennis succeeded in getting enough votes for us to gain Party status for the first time.