Linda Muculloch, who was Montana’s Democratic Secretary of State 2008-2016, has an op-ed published in several large Montana newspapers that says the state should invalidate the 2020 Green Party petition, which has enough valid signatures, because Republican Party activists paid the circulators to get the signatures.
She ignores the fact that the petition was signed by 11,000 voters. To invalidate the petition would be a violation of the rights of the signers. It would be equivalent to invalidating an election because the winning candidate committed campaign finance infractions. Once a candidate has won an election, and the election returns are not disputed, it would be injury to the voters who supported that candidate to declare the office vacant.
There is no Montana law, or law in any state, that bars persons from paying for a petition drive to qualify a party, even if the payers are not party activists. In 2004, Republicans paid for circulators to place independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the Michigan ballot. The Democratic Party tried to invalidate the petition (which had enough valid signatures), but the Michigan State Appeals Court properly said there is no basis to invalidate a petition for a candidate just because the candidate himself didn’t arrange for the payment of the circulators. DeLeeuw v Board of State Canvassers, 688 NW 2d 847 (2004).
The real problem with the Montana election law is that it forces small qualified parties to nominate by primary. The Green Party wants to be on the ballot in Montana, especially for president; but it doesn’t wish to run anyone for U.S. Senate. If the party could nominate by convention, it would be free to avoid the Senate race. But because Montana forces it to nominate by primary, and has an open primary, there is nothing the party can do to avoid having a Senate candidate. McCulloch, as a former Secretary of State, ought to be aware of that. McCulloch is on the Board of Advisors to “Let America Vote”, yet she is trying to prevent Montana voters from voting for the Green Party in 2020.
Too bad
I do not think there was anything illegal about how this petition drive was funded. This sounds like a case of sour grapes.
Yeah it figured you would say that Andy since you are being paid by Russia to troll on behalf of gop.
One more tyrant HACK — as in Wisc.
Lol looks like “Andy” switched fake names to “demo rep” well at least the Rep part is true.
If anyone’s a troll on here it’s Olivia, and almost certainly a home grown troll at that given her McCarthyism. She clearly hasn’t been following BAN long enough to know what Demo Rep is all about, otherwise she’d know that none of us regulars would believe her claim about Andy being Demo Rep. And she’d also know that we believe in and support free and fair elections and a just and equal legal process. As Richard Winger pointed out, the GOP funding the ballot access drive was technically legal, if sleazy and underhanded (it put my fellow Greens in an awkward spot since, unlike what some Democrat propagandists claim, we DO NOT support the GOP). But revoking the ballot status of the Montana Greens because of the funding issue would in fact violate election law and legal precedent.
Good post, Joshua H.
McCarthyism? What? The Putin trump axis is fascist, not communist. True I only found this site today. Due to Wisconsin article but Andy is an obvious Putin troll. I did jump the gun in concluding he is demo rep so apologies for that. Anyway the green party should stop aiding and abetting the fascist Putin trump takeover of the USA. Didn’t we all learn our lesson from Nader in 2000 people? It’s even worse now. We need to unite around Joe Biden and the democratic party up and down the ballot and hope like hell there’s still time to save this country.
Figured the gop troll would live the green party comment. If You are really green party you should see you are really being played for fools by the republican right wing fash.
Hey xauli. Why not take this discussion to IPRX or the PLAS Place instead of wasting everyone’s time here?
Hey “Andy” would you please translate your last comment for those of us who don’t speak Russian?
The One more tyrant HACK is Linda McCulloch, Former Montana Secretary of State – for any dummies here.
—
Divide and conquer — for 6,000 plus years.
—
How many ANTI-Democracy hacks/trolls/morons on BAN ???
—- esp Donkeys / Elephants / foreign [esp Putin / Xi types] / nonpartisan – pure morons ???
Almost need a super-computer and book/movie/tv detectives to decipher who’s who and what’s what.
—-
MT is 1 of the 18 Voter pet Con Amdt States.
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
Actually she’s right, but Andy is the republican foreign Putin moron.
Linda McCulloch is a political hack, an idiot, and most likely stupid.
You will recall it was her who was going to force the Libertarian Party to have two candidates on the general election ballot, because they could not have a primary ballot under a miswitten state law.
Rather than fixing the law to make primary ballots like in Michigan and Wisconsin, where all parties are on a single sheet of paper, the law was changed a bit to make the conditions for having a separate ballot paper more logical. But the Libertarian Party only has one Senate candidate and thus no ballot, even though Montana permits write-ins in primaries.
(1) Libertarians must nominate by primary.
(2) Libertarian candidates must file to be on the primary ballot.
(3) In certain conditions, no ballots will be printed for Libertarians.
You can imagine a would-be Libertarian voter who gets a packet with a Democrat, Republican, Green, and non-partisan ballots. How many are going to voted the non-partisan ballot.
The group conducting the petition drive did file with the Office of Political Practices, but the pull-down menu did not have an option for this type of committee. It is a new type of committee, which only became subject to reporting contributions on October 1. The bill was introduced and passed in the waning days of the legislature at the behest of Governor Bullock. He set the filing schedule, of April 15.
The legislature had earlier rejected a bill HB 647 that would have eliminated the caps on signatures to qualify a new party. Currently, there is a statewide cap of 5000. If eliminated, 12,797 signatures would have been required. Also the district cap of 150 would have been removed. The district requirements would have ranged from 55 to 266. The bill would also have eliminated out of state circulators, and payment per signature.
The sponsor during debate claimed that her bill would keep Montana out of court, make it easier, and be reasonable, fair, accurate, and transparent. She also argued that party qualification was equivalent to a ballot initiatives (she referred to statute initiatives as “unconstitutional” to distinguish it from constitutional amendments.
When this bill went down on a party-line vote, the reporting bill was pushed forward.
The real problem with Montana law is that political parties are permitted to “nominate” anyone. Montana legislative candidates face a $15 filing fee to qualify for a primary. This can be waived for impecunity.
Instead, a petition equal to 0.1% of the gubernatorial vote should be required (3 to 8 signatures). All candidates run in an Open Primary, with a runoff if no candidate receives a majority.
How many small pop States have STONE Age ballot access laws —
due to STONE AGE brains of ruling class gerrymander oligarchs ???
IE – the D or R ruling class gang BARELY letting R or D candidates on ballots.
@DR,
Sharks don’t bite people because they are bad people. They have evolved to be successful at it. Legislators are not legislators because they excel at it. They are legislators because they were elected. Change the rules, and they might not be elected.
When Scotland went from FPTP to STV for local councils, there was little debate about the magnitude of the districts, the debate was about how to provide pensions for those who would surely not be re-elected.
USA legislators [a lower life form than sharks] are legislators due to ANTI-Democracy machinations —
1. totally rigged gerrymander districts.
2. UNEQUAL ballot access laws.
Thank the appointed party robot SCOTUS hacks for the N-O-W CRISIS.
—
PR
APPV
TOTSOP