On September 13, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office issued official election returns for the August 30 primary for the Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican primaries. No one appeared on the primary ballots of the Green Party and the Libertarian Party for U.S. Senate. But both parties had a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate and various other offices.
The Green Party declared write-in candidate in the Green primary for U.S. Senate, Gary Swing, received 238 write-ins. Under the law, he is the nominee and his name will be printed on the November ballot for U.S. Senate. But the Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate, Merissa Hamilton, received 1,286 write-ins in the Libertarian primary, and she will not be allowed to be on the November ballot. Libertarians for statewide office this year needed approximately 4,000 write-ins to be nominated, but Greens only needed one write-in.
The law treats “new” parties differently than “old” parties. The Green Party is considered “new” because it last did its party petition in the period June 2013-May 2014. The Libertarian Party has not had to do a party petition since 1992, because it remains on by keeping its registration above two-thirds of 1%. The Libertarian Party is currently in court, arguing against the minimum number of write-ins needed to nominate in the party’s own primary. The law penalizes minor parties for being successful in their voter registration efforts. Thanks to Bob Johnston for the link.
That certainly doesn’t sound fair. Of course, I’d prefer a solution to the problem that leaves them both on the ballot rather than both off.
What does the Arizona statute on this point say, Richard? In Michigan, the requirement for advancing from a primary write-in to the general ballot is to top all three of the following standards (MCL 168.582):
* 10 votes;
* 0.15% of the population (as of the previous Census) of the constituency/district served; or
* “5% of the greatest number of votes cast by the party for any office at the primary in the state, congressional, or other district, township, county, city, or ward, for a candidate or for all candidates for nomination for an office for which only 1 person is to be nominated” (or if it’s an office where multiple seats are to be filled, “the 5% limitation shall be based upon the greatest number of votes cast at the primary for any candidate for the same office”).
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-168-582
I presume the idea of the third threshold is to scale the required result to indicate a proportion of support among the party’s voter base. But since only Ds and Rs have been in the primary for as long as I know of here, it hasn’t applied to any other parties.
The old Arizona law, repealed in 2015, was rational. The number of write-ins (for old parties) was a proportion of how many registered voters that had.
The new law passed in 2015 says the number is a percentage of the number of registered voters plus the number of registered voters in that party. Since there are more registered independents in Arizona than many of any party (the independents outnumber the Dems and the Reps), this means the number of write-ins for the Libertarian Party isn’t that much smaller than the number needed by Reps or Dems. Yet the number of registered Reps or Dems is huge compared to the number of registered Libertarians.
Of course the old law was fine and would have been good for both Libt and Green.
The difference can be explained in Arizona Revised Statutes, 16-645, Sections D and E:
D. Except as provided in subsection C of this section, a letter declaring nomination shall not be issued to a write-in candidate of a party that has not qualified for continued representation on the official ballot pursuant to section 16-804 unless he receives a plurality of the votes of the party for the office for which he is a candidate.
Section D applies to the Green Party.
E. Except as provided by subsection C of this section, a letter declaring nomination shall not be issued to a write-in candidate of a party qualified for continued representation on the official ballot unless he receives a number of votes equivalent to at least the same number of signatures required by section 16-322 for nominating petitions for the same office.
Section E applies to the Libertarian Party.
As Richard Winger explained to me years ago, Section D was the result of the ruling in a 1980 federal court case, Socialist Workers Party of Arizona v. Mofford. The opinion was unpublished but it appears as Exhibit B in this year’s Libertarian Party brief in the write-in case, previously published by Ballot Access News: http://ballot-access.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Arizona-Libertarian-write-in-brief.pdf
According to the official canvass, none of the eight Libertarian write-in candidates for Congress got sufficient votes to win the primary and advance to the general election, but all three Green write-in candidates won their primaries, including Gary Swing in the Second Congressional District, in addition to his winning the Senate primary.
(Apparently two Green Party candidates for Congress either misunderstood how to file or were unaware of how easy it was to win the primary because they skipped the primary and filed as write-in candidates for the general election. They will not appear on the November ballot.)
None of the Libertarian write-in candidates for the state legislature won their primaries, either, but all of the Green write-in candidates won their primaries, one with as few as 8 write-in votes.
After years of being a party that nominated candidates for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, the Arizona Senate and House, and statewide offices from Governor to the Corporation Commission, the Arizona Libertarian Party has been consigned by the Republican majority in the state legislature and the Republican governor to being a party whose only candidates will be the Presidential-Vice Presidential ticket of the national Libertarian Party every four years.
The Arizona Republicans have effectively destroyed the Arizona Libertarian Party.
Per usual –
1. Every election is NEW.
2. Separate is NOT equal.
3. EQUAL ballot access tests for ALL candidates for the SAME office in the SAME area.
Difficult ONLY for MORON lawyers and worse MORON judges.
Part of the problem not discussed here is the Democrats,Republicans, and Greens had Open primaries where independents can choose which party to vote in. The Libertarians choose to have a closed primary this time around thus 1,164,373 independents were barred from voting a Libertarian ballot. As a result only 26,653 registered Libertarians could vote of which only 1,286 did
Demo Rep per usual you repeat disjointed irrelevant nonsense.
I do need people however to take my presidential survey at http://waunakeegan.weebly.com/waunakeegan-polling.html for a fair and accurate poll of the race.
RKS — Sorry – time ran out a LONG time ago for 100,000 word essays about the monarchy/oligarchy ROT in the USA (since day 1).
NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
—
— akin to saying DOWN with the Brit King George III on 4 July 1776.
I withdrew my filing for the Green Party primary for the Second Congressional District, but remain a candidate for US Senate for the general election. I support fair ballot access for candidates of political affiliations, and proportional representation to give each party fair representation in Congress and state legislatures. My Libertarian colleague Merissa Hamilton had an impressive vote turn out as a write-in candidate in her party’s primary for US Senate.