On March 31, an independent candidate for U.S. House in Oklahoma, Stephen Christopher Wright, filed a federal lawsuit against the Oklahoma petition in lieu of filing fee. He argues that it is impossible to collect the needed signatures. Although Oklahoma would let him on the ballot without a petition if he paid the filing fee, he argues that he cannot afford the fee. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled twice that candidates who cannot pay the filing fee must have some alternative means for getting on the ballot.
Here is the Complaint in Wright v State, w.d., 5:20cv-287. He has already been permitted to file the lawsuit without paying the court filing fee; the magistrate agrees that he is a pauper.
His Complaint is legally deficient because he only sued the “State of Oklahoma”. Under the Eleventh Amendment, a lawsuit like this must sue individual state officers, not the state itself. But it will be easy at this point for him to amend his Complaint to also sue the Secretary of the State Election Board, or perhaps the members of the State Board, or perhaps the Governor. Any one of those defendants would be sufficient. Thanks to Chris Powell for news about this lawsuit.
What is the petition signature requirement for independent candidates for US House in Oklahoma? Depending on how high the signature requirement is, and how high the filing fee is, it may be easier to pay the filing fee even if the Coronavirus fear was not happening.
No matter what it is you just can’t pay it if you have no money.
Even if one lacks money, depending on how high the signature requirement is compared to how high the filing fee is, the filing fee might actually be less onerous than fulfilling the signature requirement would be.
The filing fee for a candidate for the U S House of Representatives was raised from $750 to $1000 for the 2020 election. “Petition. In lieu of a filing fee, a petition supporting the candidacy signed by not fewer than two percent (2%) of the number of registered voters in the appropriate district or in the state.” ~ 2020 Oklahoma candidate filing packet
There are over 400,000 registered voters, as of January 2020, in a typical Oklahoma Congressional district. That means a minimum of over 8,000 valid signatures or with a 50% overage for invalids collecting about 12,000 signatures per district. The costs of soliciting that many signatures in normal times could easily exceed $25,000 and might require $50,000. For candidates to file by petition only for all five Oklahoma Congressional districts the costs could be $250.000.
Democratic and Republican candidates typically pay only the fees or $5,000 for a full slate of Congressional candidates.
Fees and/or petitions, like term limits, levied on federal candidates by states are of very dubious constitutionality as added qualifications not authorized by the U S Constitution.
ANY body in OK able to detect EQUAL in 14-1 Amdt ???
SCOTUS MORONS failure since 1968 Williams v Rhodes
— 52 years and counting.
This is Stephen Wright, the plaintiff.
This article is not accurate.
I added the governor due to the emergency orders creating barriers to gathering signatures, which is the only path for paupers.
I added the official who denied my declaration of candidacy due to lack of fees.
My complaint is as follows:
The state of Oklahoma currently, pursuant to 2006 Oklahoma Code – Title 26. — Elections §26511: Petitions and filing fees, allows 2 methods in which to appear on the ballot. One method is to pay a filing fee, and another method is to physically gain signatures from voters within that district.
The Corona pandemic has caused many states to declare a state of emergency. During this pandemic, it is advised by health officials to include the Center for Disease Control to keep distance from one another. This creates a barrier to gathering physical signatures as it is against the advice of federal health officials to come into contact with one another at that distance.
The Corona pandemic has caused many states to declare a state of emergency. During this pandemic, unemployment has skyrocketed to over 3 million, the largest increase in unemployment rates in American history. Many people have been laid off or unable to return to work due to the State of Oklahoma’s executive orders, causing an unprecedented financial burden on the entire population of the state of Oklahoma. This creates a financial barrier to obtaining the funds needed to appear on the ballot and also gathering the signatures needed to appear on the ballot. Therefore the State of Oklahoma is creating multiple, unprecedented, barriers to running for office to include executive orders, Oklahoma statute Title 26 §26511.
The Plaintiff, and others running for public office in Oklahoma, do have a federal constitutional right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualification. The State may not deny to some the privilege of holding public office that it extends to others on the basis of distinctions that violate federal constitutional guarantees. This includes financial descrimination.
The Defendant has made it so the only people able to get on the ballot are those with their own financial resources.
The Plaintiff has been found to have financial barriers, through approval of paupers applications, in CIV-19-1071-JD and CIV-20-201-JD in US District Court Oklahoma Western District
The Plaintiff has been found to have financial barriers in FD-2014-51 in Oklahoma County District Court, and is considered indigent.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
Plaintiffs’ claims arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States. This
Court has jurisdiction over these claims under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343(a)(3).
12. This Court has the authority to grant declaratory and injunctive relief under 28
U.S.C. § 2201-2202 and Fed. R. Civ. P. 57 and 65. The federal rights asserted by Plaintiffs are enforceable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Venue is proper in the Western District of Oklahoma under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e).
Defendant resides in this judicial district. All of the events and omissions by Defendants giving rise to this action occurred in this judicial district.
Parties
The Plaintiff is Stephen Wright, a resident of Oklahoma County in the state of Oklahoma
The Defendant is the State of Oklahoma
Count 1
The Defendant is violating the Plaintiffs Federal Constitutional rights under the 14th amendment.
The Defendant is violating the Equal Protection Clause, a part of the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution, through actions deriving from both enforcement of executive orders and Oklahoma Statutes. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that helped to dismantle racial segregation, and also the basis for many other decisions rejecting discrimination against, and bigotry towards people belonging to various groups. The Plaintiff is a part of a group of people identified as Indigent. This group is recognized by the United States and the State of Oklahoma as a group, or class of people, which have financial barriers and therefore there has been action taken to make justice and law more equal to this group of people. An example of this is waiving the fees or security deposit for members of this group in cases like these. Therefore the precedent is aiding people of this group in protecting rights, which include the right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualification and the right to not unfairly or unnecessarily be burdened.
To comply with the First and Fourteenth Amendments the State must provide a feasible opportunity for new political organizations and their candidates to appear on the ballot, and the current statutes and orders enforced by the state of Oklahoma does not provide a feasible opportunity for new political organizations and their candidates to appear on the ballot.
Memorandum of law in Support
The Equal Protection Clause applies to state specification of qualifications for elective and appointive office. Although one may “have no right” to be elected or appointed to an office, all persons “do have a federal constitutional right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualification. The State may not deny to some the privilege of holding public office that it extends to others on the basis of distinctions that violate federal constitutional guarantees.”1989 In Bullock v. Carter,1990 the Court used a somewhat modified form of the strict test in passing upon a filing fee system for primary election candidates that imposed the cost of the election wholly on the candidates and that made no alternative provision for candidates unable to pay the fees; the reason for application of the standard, however, was that the fee system deprived some classes of voters of the opportunity to vote for certain candidates and it worked its classifications along lines of wealth. The system itself was voided because it was not reasonably connected with the state’s interest in regulating the ballot and did not serve that interest and because the cost of the election could be met out of the state treasury, thus avoiding the discrimination.1991
Recognizing the state interest in maintaining a ballot of reasonable length in order to promote rational voter choice, the Court observed nonetheless that filing fees alone do not test the genuineness of a candidacy or the extent of voter support for an aspirant. Therefore, effectuation of the legitimate state interest must be achieved by means that do not unfairly or unnecessarily burden the party’s or the candidate’s “important interest in the continued availability of political opportunity. The interests involved are not merely those of parties or individual candidates; the voters can assert their preferences only through candidates or parties or both and it is this broad interest that must be weighed in the balance. The process of qualifying candidates for a place on the ballot may not constitutionally be measured solely in dollars.”1992 In the absence of reasonable alternative means of ballot access, the Court held, a state may not disqualify an indigent candidate unable to pay filing fees.1993
In Williams v. Rhodes,1995 a complex statutory structure that had the effect of keeping off the ballot all but the candidates of the two major parties was struck down under the strict test because it deprived the voters of the opportunity of voting for independent and third-party candidates and because it seriously impeded the exercise of the right to associate for political purposes. Similarly, a requirement that an independent candidate for office in order to obtain a ballot position must obtain 25,000 signatures, including 200 signatures from each of at least 50 of the state’s 102 counties, was held to discriminate against the political rights of the inhabitants of the most populous counties, when it was shown that 93.4% of the registered voters lived in the 49 most populous counties.1996 But to provide that the candidates of any political organization obtaining 20% or more of the vote in the last gubernatorial or presidential election may obtain a ballot position simply by winning the party’s primary election, while requiring candidates of other parties or independent candidates to obtain the signatures of less than five percent of those eligible to vote at the last election for the office sought, is not to discriminate unlawfully, because the state placed no barriers of any sort in the way of obtaining signatures and because write-in votes were also freely permitted.1997
Reviewing under the strict test the requirements for qualification of new parties and independent candidates for ballot positions, the Court recognized as valid objectives and compelling interests the protection of the integrity of the nominating and electing process, the promotion of party stability, and the assurance of a modicum of order in regulating the size of the ballot by requiring a showing of some degree of support for independents and new parties before they can get on the ballot.1998 “To comply with the First and Fourteenth Amendments the State must provide a feasible opportunity for new political organizations and their candidates to appear on the ballot.”1999 Decision whether or not a state statutory structure affords a feasible opportunity is a matter of degree, “very much a matter of ‘consider[ing] the facts and circumstances behind the law, the interest which the State claims to be protecting, and the interest of those who are disadvantaged by the classification.’ ”2000
Thus, in order to assure that parties seeking ballot space command a significant, measurable quantum of community support, Texas was upheld in treating different parties in ways rationally constructed to achieve this objective. Candidates of parties whose gubernatorial choice polled more than 200,000 votes in the last general election had to be nominated by primary elections and went on the ballot automatically, because the prior vote adequately demonstrated support. Candidates whose parties polled less than 200,000 but more than 2 percent could be nominated in primary elections or in conventions. Candidates of parties not coming within either of the first two categories had to be nominated in conventions and could obtain ballot space only if the notarized list of participants at the conventions totaled at least one percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last preceding general election or, failing this, if in the 55 succeeding days a requisite number of qualified voters signed petitions to bring the total up to one percent of the gubernatorial vote. “What is demanded may not be so excessive or impractical as to be in reality a mere device to always, or almost always, exclude parties with significant support from the ballot,” but the Court thought that one percent, or 22,000 signatures in 1972, “falls within the outer boundaries of support the State may require.”2001 Similarly, independent candidates can be required to obtain a certain number of signatures as a condition to obtain ballot space.2002 A state may validly require that each voter participate only once in each year’s nominating process and it may therefore disqualify any person who votes in a primary election from signing nominating or supporting petitions for independent parties or candidates.2003 Equally valid is a state requirement that a candidate for elective office, as an independent or in a regular party, must not have been affiliated with a political party, or with one other than the one of which he seeks its nomination, within one year prior to the primary election at which nominations for the general election are made.2004 So too, a state may limit access to the general election ballot to candidates who received at least 1% of the primary votes cast for the particular office.2005 But it is impermissible to print the names of the candidates of the two major parties only on the absentee ballots, leaving off independents and other parties.2006 Also invalidated was a requirement that independent candidates for President and Vice-President file nominating petitions by March 20 in order to qualify for the November ballot.2007
Where is the inaccuracy? Looks like an accurate summary with a link to the original, as far as I can see.