On April 11, a state trial court in Iowa removed Abby Finkenauer from the June 7 Iowa Democratic Party primary ballot, because she was three signatures short. However, she had enough signatures statewide, and the state law that requires a certain number of signatures for a certain number of counties is unconstitutional under Moore v Ogilvie, a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court that invalidated county distribution requirements for statewide petitions. There are about a dozen similar precedents from lower courts. The two most recent are Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, 877 F.3d 480 (2017) and Montana Green Party v Jacobson, 17 F.4th 919 (2021). See this story. The case is Schmett v State Objections Panel, Polk Co., cv63390. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the news.
Finkenauer is considered the most likely candidate to win the primary, assuming she eventually gets on the ballot. She is appealing. The Iowa distribution requirement is 100 signatures from each of nineteen counties.
Failure to indict the nonstop hacks and their nonstop machinations to overthrow the USA Const.
— esp by election machinations.
https://ballotpedia.org/Moore_v._Ogilvie
cited in Bush v Gore 2000
means ZERO to hacks.
The requirement of 100 signatures in 19 counties would not, unlike Moore or other cases (e.g., Idaho Coalition), empower a minority of inhabitants to thwart ballot access. Iowa’s 19 most-populous counties account for only about 1/3 of the statewide population. Iowa also allows any eligible elector (not just registered voters) sign a petition, much broader than most similar statutes at issue.
Most of the winning cases did not involve a minority of voters being able to thwart ballot access. That is true in Hawaii, Illinois the 2nd time (Communist Party v State Board), Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wyoming. Rhode Island only required 10 signatures in each of the five counties and even that was unconstitutional. The recent Pennsylvania case was only 100 signatures in each of ten counties.
You can’t get 100 signatures in 19 counties? You are not a serious candidate.
The decisions don’t involve candidates; they involve voters. County distribution requirements give some voters more power than other voters. These laws give more power to voters in small-population counties than those in other counties.
If this happened to be the leading Republican, Richard Winger would support this 100%. Because it’s a communist involved, he hates it.
Richard, see Moore vs. Ogilvie, 394 US 814 (1969).
Distribution requirements based on counties are unconstitutional because they do not account for population differences, as suggested above. New York once had such a requirement for statewide candidates, but changed it. To run in NY primary for a statewide office, one must get either 25% of the vote of the state committee or file a petition with 10,000 (?) signatures including at least 200 in each of half the state’s congressional districts. At least congressional districts are purportedly equal in population.
Once again, filing fees ought to be an option.