On December 9, the Maine Secretary of State said the Libertarian Party is not a qualified party. The law says a new party can qualify by having at least 5,000 registered members by December 1 of the odd year before the election. The Libertarian Party submitted approximately 6,400 registration cards, but election officials only processed 4,489 by December 1. There are enough unprocessed registration cards to put the party over the 5,000 requirement, but the Secretary of State says they don’t count because they haven’t yet been processed.
It is extremely likely that the December 1 deadline is unconstitutionally early. Courts have struck down early petition or registration deadlines for a group to qualify for party status in Alabama (April was too early), Arkansas (January was too early), California (January was too early), Idaho (May was too early), Nebraska (February was too early), Nevada (April was too early), New Mexico (April was too early), Ohio (November of the year before the election was too early), South Dakota (February was too early), and Tennessee (April was too early). All of those were procedures to qualify a party, not procedures for candidates.
In addition, deadlines for procedures for candidates to qualify for the general election ballot were struck down in many other states, including Maine. A US District Court invalidated Maine’s non-presidential independent candidate petition deadline of April in Stoddard v Quinn, in 1984.
The earliest deadline for a new party to qualify that was upheld was the Alabama March deadline, but the reason it was upheld was that Alabama had its primary for all office in March. In the past, when Alabama had a June primary for all office, the April petition deadline was held unconstitutional. The Maine primary is June 14, 2016.
“The Libertarian Party submitted approximately 6,400 registration cards, but election officials only processed 4,489 by December 1. There are enough unprocessed registration cards to put the party over the 5,000 requirement, but the Secretary of State says they don’t count because they haven’t yet been processed.”
That’s some grade-A horse manure, right there.
Is there any justification for such an interpretation of the deadline, or did they just pull that out of thin air?
Maine is an unusually bureaucratic state. In the past an independent candidate submitted her signatures just before the deadline. She turned them in to the town clerks. That is required. The town clerks in some cases didn’t process her signatures in time for her to pick them up and take them to the Secretary of State. Even though she met the deadline, she was kept off the ballot. She sued and the U.S. District Court ruled against her, beginning the decision with the sentence, “There is no constitutional right to procrastinate.” That was Dobson v Dunlap, 576 F Supp 2d 181 (2008). The decision also said, “Usually, a petition must be presented to the town registrars by 5 pm on May 25 and filed with the Secretary of State on June 1; however, as May 25, 2008 fell on Sunday and Monday was Memorial Day, the due dates were moved to May 27 and June 2, respectively.” Laurie Dobson submitted all her signatures on May 27 but the court felt she should have submitted them earlier. Another legal problem she had is that she first filed in state court but did not raise the constitutional issue in the lower court. When she appealed to the State Supreme Court and did argue constitutionality, the Maine Supreme Court said she couldn’t argue that because she hadn’t brought it up in lower court. Then she went to federal court and the federal judge said she already had her chance in state court so he wouldn’t consider the constitutional angle either.
How does this effect the 2016 presidential ballot possibilities?
The party is free to do the independent presidential petition, which requires 4,000 signatures and is due August 1, 2016. That procedure permits a partisan label. But I expect the party to sue against the December 1 deadline and win. It is absurd to have a deadline 6 and one-half months before the primary. There is no other state that has a deadline that many days before the primary. Maine has no presidential primary.
What is so great about IRV, when a party candidate has to qualify in December to hold an IRV primary in the summer, to get on an IRV ballot in November.
Why not have a Top 2 Open Primary in September, and let candidates choose their party label as is done in Washington, and in Texas for special elections? If you need formal party recognition do like in Florida.
Party candidates in Maine qualify by submitting petitions that are due in early April.