There are many election law issues surrounding presidential elections, in which people assume the laws are far more restrictive, than they actually are.
1. In approximately half the states, fusion is legal for president. It is impossible to say exactly how many states, because sometimes the details matter (is it fusion between two qualified parties, or a qualified party and an unqualified party, or between a party and an independent).
2. Sore loser laws do not generally apply to presidential candidates. Presidential candidates who ran in presidential primaries, and then appeared on the general election ballot under a different label, have included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, John B. Anderson, Lyndon LaRouche, and David Duke. No state has ever kept a presidential candidate off the general election ballot because he was a “sore loser”, except that Mississippi kept Lyndon LaRouche off as an independent in 1992 on those grounds. He tried to sue, but couldn’t obtain an attorney.
The logical basis for “sore loser” laws does not apply to presidential candidates, because the true candidates in November are candidates for presidential elector. Article Two of the Constitution makes this clear. Presidential candidates’ names appear on November ballots in their capacity as labels for competing slates of electors, not as candidates per se.
Was LaRouche kept off of the ballot in Mississippi in 1992 because of the sore loser laws or because he was doing time during the election?
Sore loser. It would be unconstitutional to keep a candidate for federal office off the ballot because he or she was in prison. The US Constitution sets for the requirements for president and congress, and states can’t add to them. Presidential candidates who appeared on ballots even though they were in prison at the time include Eugene Debs, Vincent Hallinan, and Leonard Peltier.
It is a matter of public record that the USA acts more like a global empire than a nation-state. The non voting of out lying ‘territories’ ——much less the Heart of the Capitol in the District of Columbia, is a World Court case waiting to be filed!
Remember, we are the world’s global economic engine, AND WE DO NOT USE THE METRIC SYSTEM. We talk about democracy, and do not practise what we preach…..
Yeah, from sore loser laws to the metric system. It was a logical progression. Any sane person would have made it.
Metric non users, disenfranchized tax payers, winner take all Congress verses perpotional represented Parliment[s], still fighting the subdued Russians and Chinese, hugemongous DoD R&D budget [the completely unnecessary Boeing Fighter F-22 alone], Viet Nam, Gulf War II!
Every one is out of step but the USA! [Any other obvious FACTS that need to be spotlighted?]
Is the USA also out of step with spelling, grammar, and sentence structure?
The problem with a fusion ticket at the presidential level could be with naming elector slates. In Texas, elector candidates have to be affiliated with the party whose candidate they are.
Matt: LOL And he has a Ph.D. to boot.