On December 16, the Texas Republican Party, and the Democratic Party, agreed with each other that they will hold the Texas primary on April 3, not March 6. See this story. In Texas, parties, not government, administer the primaries. The government then reimburses the parties for the election administration costs.
This means the petition deadline for new or previously unqualified parties will be June 17, not May 20. Therefore, 2012 will be the first presidential election since 1984 in which every state has some means for a presidential candidate running outside the two major parties to get on the ballot, later than June 3. Colorado now has the earliest deadline, June 4.
UPDATE: the 3-judge U.S. District Court in San Antonio has now issued an order, confirming the April 3 primary date. The order takes cognizance of parties that nominate by convention as well. Candidates who want to be nominated by a party that nominates by convention must file with their own party officers by February 1, 2012. Parties that nominate by convention must forward these lists to elections officials by February 2. If any person files a declaration of candidacy for a minor party convention nomination, the minor party is then free to nominate anyone for that same office. But if no person filed a declaration of candidacy by the February 1 deadline, then that convention can’t nominate anyone for that same office. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link to the order.
Hmmm. Does TX have a *Republican FORM of government* by permitting robot party hack FACTION gangs control primaries ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
ONE election per year
“. In Texas, parties, not government, administer the primaries. The government then reimburses the parties for the election administration costs.”
This is ridiculous. I wonder if Texas will reimburse Americans Elect for a portion of its nomination vote, ie for its technology.
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Independent presidential candidates have to file by May 14 (2nd Monday in May); and a party that intends to nominate by convention must register by January 2.
BTW, the court order does recognize that there are other parties, and extended the filing deadline for candidates of those parties until February 1.
For primary candidates, there will be a filing period that will end at 6 pm on February 1; and will start at some earlier date (or time) to be determined later. Candidates will be required to correct their applications before the deadline in a period that could be just a few hours or days.
#4, thank you. The Texas independent candidate deadline (for office other than President) is now July 5, yet the independent presidential petition deadline, as you say, is May 14. This is overwhelmingly not only discriminatory but ridiculous.
Parties that nominate by convention don’t forward names of candidate to the secretary of state or county clerks. And the reason that the secretary of state and county clerks get the list of primary candidates is custodial rather than administrative; they keep records of previous elections. The same is true of primary election results.
This isn’t 100% true, since counties administer early voting and they obviously need the candidates to be able to print the ballots; and it is quite typical for county parties to contract with the counties to administer or provide equipment for primaries.
There was a law passed this year that when a county party contracts with a county for election services, the money from the state flows directly to the county.
The treasurer for the Bexar County Democratic Party embezzled $200,000 from an account intended to pay for the primary. This was discovered when a check for $100,000 to Bexar County bounced and the account had $158 in it. The Democratic County Chair at the time said that she hadn’t checked the monthly statement, because she didn’t know the treasurer was stealing money. The treasurer was recently sentenced to 6 years
#5 If the independent candidate declares for office by February 1.
The reason that convention-nominating parties can nominate someone (else) for an office for which a candidate has filed, is that in case of withdrawal, the party may extend the filing deadline for that office. In essence, they can extend the filing deadline up to the time of the convention that makes the nomination.
There are vaguely similar provisions for primary-nominating candidates, but they are much more restrictive. If a candidate dies immediately near the filing deadline; or an incumbent withdraws; or an unopposed candidate withdraws; there can be a very short extended filing period.
BTW, the convention-nominating parties must make their nominations for offices below the state level in March, before their precinct conventions that ostensibly choose delegates to the convention.
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Which MORON State regime has THE most insane byzantine UNEQUAL ballot access laws ??? — allowed to exist by the SCOTUS robot party hack MORONs.
#9, I think the most irrational ballot access in the nation is the Oklahoma law for independent candidates. It says independent candidates don’t need any signatures at all to get on the November ballot…EXCEPT if the independent is running for president, that person needs about 50,000 signatures.
#10 Perhaps all the tornados in OK have sucked out any brain cells from the party hacks ???
Will the troops fighting the barbarians in Asia and elsewhere (i.e. defending Democracy) be able to nominate any candidates and/or get their ballots from the TX regime and back to it on time ???
i.e. Right to VOTE for overseas troops comes FIRST — regardless of ALL of the EVIL machinations by the party hacks ???
How about a Const. Amdt. to have automatic lawsuits directly with SCOTUS regarding ANY existing or new election law or regulation or gerrymander plan, etc. ???
Some State constitutions permit the regime to ask the State supreme court involved to rule on the constitutionality of proposed new regime laws.
— long live the US constitution and the NYS constitution and and those and other state vetted natural born citizens of the United States–and those properly and statutorially naturalized adult citizens of the United States
— and timely removal of all other “Tory” loyalists and otherwise “tourists” who attempt over stay their visa and/or attempt to erase the explicit text and meaning of the two constitutions
— finally to assist in this timely national home-land security effort, the US immediately declare war on Mexico, invade and indefinitely occupy Mexico providing for the safe restoration and emigration of those Mexican nationals and otherwise mexican parent born tourists to the nation of Mexico under the protectorate and trust territory supervision of the United States of America.
— Texas will serve as the site for this US-DOD (not DHS) controlling agency of this national security and war effort occupation of Mexico
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