Cornel West Wins Maine Challenge

On August 21, the Maine Secretary of State ruled that the Cornel West petition challenge should not prevail.  See this story.  The challengers said that signatures with a month and day, but no year, are not valid, but that was rejected.  The challengers also said people must sign with their legal name, not a nickname, and that was defeated also.


Comments

Cornel West Wins Maine Challenge — 16 Comments

  1. People can sign with nicknames? Like lil dip, snoopy, baby joker, tiny, etc? How is the person checking that against a list of enrolled voters supposed to know who that is?

  2. Nickname means first name, not surname. If the signature matches and the address matches and the surname matches, it is valid.

  3. “They actually look at signatures? That’s different from most states.”

    In the New England states, they do. In fact, in those states, you actually have to take the petitions to the town or city hall, and have them checked, one by one against the voter list, before you can submit them to the state elections office.

    In Massachusetts, you don’t have to present an ID to vote, but they make sure that every single petition signature is checked.

  4. Given that, in Massachusetts, many positions go unopposed year after year, actual voting is something of a formality. Just getting on the ballot in the Democratic primary is often sufficient to getting elected, hence the emphasis on checking petition signatures, and the relative casualness with which actual voting is conducted. The hottest elections there are usually only in the Democratic primary.

  5. “They’ve had a fair number of Republican governors and senators in recent years.”

    Governors, yes; Senators, not so much.

    Anyway, voting Republican for Governor (and those “Republicans” are usually styled as RINO’s by other Republicans) is often the only serious alternative to saying “No” to the Democrats.

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