On August 18, the Federal Election Commission announced that it will take action against persons who file forms FEC 1 or FEC 2, if the FEC suspects that the filings are for fake names. See this FEC press release. Forms 1 and 2 are so short and simple, many persons have started filing them using fictitious names.
I remember looking up the Green filers earlier this cycle and seeing a name that sounded familiar: Jennifer Walters. Then I looked at the record and saw the committee name: She-Hulk for President. (Well, she is a reasonably successful attorney — and she’s definitely Green.)
Any I. M. Fake candidates filed yet ???
Yet one more reason to have ONLY equal nominating petitions for ballot access.
Demo Rep… The FEC has nothing to do with petitioning. People file with the FEC to submit contribution reports and that’s all.
The simple solution would be to require notarized mailed-in hard copies and prohibit electronic filings of the original forms for future election cycles. 1850 filings this year? Well duh! http://www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidential_form2nm.shtml
Doing a search for “Deez Nuts”, Google says that persons also searched for these jokesters:
Jimmy McMillan
Vermin Supreme
Bernie Sanders
Jeb Bush
The press release suggests they might also do something about individuals who submit “materials not related to campaign finance, such as…essays”, which means they might take action against those who file unnecessary Form 99s in addition to the fictitious Form 1s and 2s.
As far as the Form 1s go, I wonder how this would affect people who attempt to create a draft committee for some kind of celebrity for President. Would these such committees also be subjected to this verification letter process?
It will be interesting to see what kind of draft procedures the working group comes up with.