On April 20, a U.S. District Court issued an opinion in Arsenault v Way, 3:16cv-1854, striking down the New Jersey residence requirement for petitioners who wish to circulate petitions for candidates running in primaries. Here is the 21-page decision. The case had been filed in 2016 when Rocky De La Fuente was running in Democratic presidential primaries. He needed 1,000 signatures of registered Democrats in order to get on the New Jersey Democratic presidential primary. He did not get on that ballot; the only candidates who appeared on that ballot were Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Originally the U.S. District Court had upheld the restriction, but then the Third Circuit had remanded it and said the lower court should have used the strict scrutiny test. Under that test, the law cannot survive unless the state can show that it has a compelling need for the restriction. The state tried to argue that the Democratic and Republican Parties would be harmed without the restriction, but the two major parties themselves never intervened in the case and the state produced no evidence that the parties would be harmed.
mere 4 plus years ago
ONE voter forms for ALL petitions
“The state tried to argue that the Democratic and Republican Parties would be harmed without the restriction, but the two major parties themselves never intervened in the case and the state produced no evidence that the parties would be harmed.”
Dirty little secret: sometimes major party candidates need paid petitioners to get on the ballot, too.
Another dirty little secret: when a major party candidate is desperate to get on the ballot, that candidate doesn’t give a damn whether the paid petitioners are “foreign” or “domestic.”
Another thing: I cannot prove this, but sometimes it seems like major party candidates will hire a bunch of paid petitioners not just to collect a huge amount of signatures, but also to keep the number of paid petitioners available to rivals at a minimum.
In fact, I seriously doubt if any major party candidate who hires petitioners cares whether or not they are illegal aliens.
I have never voted for Rocky; but, i know he is a fighter for ballot access.
If we had RCV for President, I would have ranked Rocky #2 just based the effect he has made for ballot access.
Rocky! ROCKY! ROCKY!!!