On December 27, the Texas Republican Party said the initiative petition for secession is invalid. Texas does not have the statewide initiative for state laws or constitutional amendments, but Texas does permit statewide advisory initiatives on partisan primary ballots. Such petitions for the Republican Party in 2024 require 97,709 signatures. A group that supports secession from the United States submitted 139,000 signatures.
The party says the initiative petition was due on December 10, the day before the candidate filing petition deadline. December 10, 2023, was a Sunday, and the Republican Party’s office, which is the place to submit the petitions, was not even open that day. The group supporting the initiative believes the deadline is December 11, and submitted the petition that day.
Also, the party also says most of the signatures were electronic, and disputes that such signatures are valid.
The sponsors of the initiative say they will file a lawsuit to valid their petition. The lawsuit will need to move fast; the primary is March 5. See this story. Thanks Jim Riley for this news.
“Also, the party also says most of the signatures were electronic, and disputes that such signatures are valid.”
It would be an interesting precedent if the electronic signatures on the secession petition were ruled valid.
State law seems to say they are valid for initiatives.
The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) cites the Business & Commerce code as permitting electronic signatures. This in a uniform law that has been adopted by 49 states. If electronic signatures for petitions is valid in Texas, it is valid almost everywhere.
But use of electronic signatures requires consent of all parties. I don’t think the RPT has consented.
I think some other requirements of petitioning has been bypassed, particularly the requirement of witnessing.
That’s what the stupid bastards get for waiting until the last minute. When will people ever learn.
@BigD,
The legislature goobered the law. In any case, if a deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday it moves to the next day.
DID TEXAS REGIME EVER CHANGE ITS LAWS FROM 1836-1845 TO CONFORM WITH THE USA CONST, LAWS AND TREATIES ???
ANY COURT RULES [AND OPS] RE HOLIDAYS / SAT / SUN ???
Didn’t Texas have a law change or court ruling which made electronic signatures legal? I want to say in the last year or two.
DMVs giving driving licenses to illegals in some states, and non citizens in every state. While also doing opt out automatic voter registration in some.
Mail in voter forms.
Mail in votes.
Electronic petition signatures .
Who needs actual, living, breathing voters who are citizens of the US and their state?
@AZ,
See T.E.C. 1.006(a) and T.E.C. 172.088(d)
@BAR,
The case has been appealed, and the injunction stayed.
So a 16 year old can wade across the Rio Grande one day and show up at a DMV, become a licensed driver and registered voter the next?
Yes, and a sixteen year old dog can pawmark a registration and absentee voter application twofer someone fills out (who’s a good boy) or a sixteen picosecond old bot can sign electronic petitions. The future is now, and it’s so bright I have to wear shades.
If the injunction is stayed, wouldn’t that make the Texas Nationalist signatures valid? Or is it the other way around?
It makes signatures and votes of Texas nationalists invalid, while 16 year olds who waded across the Rio Grande the day before, dogs, bots etc can vote and sign all the petitions they want.
@BAR,
I should have explained better.
The court case is ‘Miller v Doe’. 1:19-cv-00700-RP Texas Western District.
Mark Miller was the Libertarian nominee for Railroad Commissioner in 2016, and is representative of possible independent voters/candidates and/or 3rd parties. The Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and American Parties are also plaintiffs. “Doe” is John or Jane Doe, since Texas did not have a Secretary of State at the time the suit was filed in July 2019.
The lawsuit made several equal protection claims, such as the large number of signatures, short period of time to collect them, and the primary screen-out – where voters in a primary can not sign an independent petition.
An independent candidate for president requires around 110,000 signatures. For statewide office or to qualify a new party around 80,000 signatures. Practically speaking, this requires professional circulators, and that requires money – perhaps as much as $1,000,000. RFK, Jr. may be able to find enthusiastic volunteers. Enthusiastic volunteers become less enthusiastic if they have to stand out in the heat or rain for days or weeks. They may be less diligent about complying with the requirements of the law such as witnessing signatures and gathering additional required information. Texas only requires that the signature be in the signers own hand, but it still requires addresses and birth dates, verifying the registration status, and screening out primary voters.
The district court ruled that SCOTUS precedent is that a state may use the flimsiest of post hoc rationalizations that their laws protect against ballot crowding, voter confusion, or party raiding, without any actual evidence (my gloss).
But then the court said that the fact that primary parties can use electronic means as part of their nomination process, it violates equal protection that convention parties and independents have to use old fashioned paper petitions. This was pretty much bozo. Many Republican and Democratic judicial candidates are required to petition on paper in addition to paying their filing fee.
Here is an example of the use of electronics by the Democrats and Republicans.
https://candidate.texas-election.com/Elections/getQualifiedCandidatesInfo.do
Select a year, and either the Democratic or Republican primary, then click on Qualified Candidates Information.
In Texas, candidates for statewide office file with the state party chair, but the primary is conducted by the 254 county parties. So the state party chair has to inform 254 county chairs that “Biden” or “Trump”, etc. are running for President so that they can be placed on the ballots in each county. Each county will have races for county and precinct offices, and different districts. Larger counties may have 100s of ballot styles.
In days of yore, the state party chair would send the names by mail or telegram or carrier pigeon. But for about a decade the filings are posted on the SOS website. The party chairs are given a password so they can
do data entry (the county party chairs must also file for offices limited to their county). After they done this, the state party chair informs the 254 county party chairs to go check on the SOS website.
The SOS has nothing to do with this other than providing electricity, internet access, and managing passwords.
On election night, counties are required to update their unofficial results every 15 minutes, which are then displayed on the SOS website. This applies to both general and primary elections. Since the county parties are administering primaries, at least in a legal sense, they are using electronic means to publicize their election results.
Now if you are a bozo or a certain federal district judge, you would say that these are equivalent to paper petitioning.
The court ordered that independents and convention parties could use electronic means in petitioning, and he ordered the SOS and plaintiffs to confer on what that meant. The SOS suggested that signatures could be captured with a stylus. This could conceivably be helpful since the other information on the petition does not have to be written by the signer. So you could have legible addresses and names and scrawled signatures captured on computer.
The plaintiffs said there had to be electronic petitioning, and the SOS was somehow supposed to provide procedures (the SOS is arguing that any such procedures are the responsibility of the legislature. They also argued that letting independents and convention parties petition electronically would violate equal protection since it would not apply to Republicans and Democrats. A literal reading of the injunction would mean that Republican and Democratic candidates could not use electronic petitions. This would presumably apply to the Texit petition as well.
The SOS appealed the decision to the 5th Circuit. The plaintiffs have cross-appealed (e.g. 10s of 1000s of signatures in a few weeks). The case appears to be proceeding reasonably quickly. The state had a brief due the first of January, and asked for a delay to the first of February, and the court gave them until the 17th.
Back when the SOS appealed, they asked for a stay on the injunction, saying that the only petitions in the fall were candidate petitions. They said that only Democrats and Republicans use petitions in the fall. Libertarians and Greens are subject to a filing fee or in lieu of petition (this is also under litigation in another case or two). Nobody has filed a petition – some have paid the fee, while others have refused but were placed on the general election ballot.
The district court judge has stayed his injunction. This means that RFK, Jr., and No Labels if they attempt to qualify in Texas, or any other new parties can not use electronic petitioning which occurs in the spring.
If I were RFK, Jr. or No Labels I would not risk electronic petitioning, and they appear to have enough $$$ to not need it (a paid petition drive for an independent candidate for president in Texas is likely over $1 million.
Thanks. So I guess that means Texas Nationalists can’t use electronic signatures either. Unless they can.
@BAR,
The deadline for sending out absentee primary ballots overseas is January 20, 2024.
The last day to challenge an application for a place on the ballot is January 16, 2024. This is the deadline for trying to knock a candidate off the ballot, but it might apply when trying to force a proposition onto the ballot.
If the TNM believes that that RPT is not following Texas law they should/could file for a writ of mandamus to compel the RPT to act.
I guess we’ll see what happens.