On August 22, a Guam voter filed a federal lawsuit against the Guam rules for independent candidates to appear on the general election ballot. McNinch v Guam, 1:25cv-34. In Guam, independent candidates must run in the primary, and must poll the lesser of the number of signatures needed to have appeared on the primary ballot, or 4% of the number of voters who voted in the primary. The plaintiff does not allege that he wants to run for any particular office. He is not an attorney and has no attorney representing him. Here is the Complaint.
In Erum v Cayetano, the Ninth Circuit upheld a somewhat similar Hawaii law, which requires independent candidates to run in the primary. They must poll the lesser of the number of votes received by any primary winner running for the same office, or 10% of the number of voters who participated in the primary. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds, because Hawaii always has several minor parties on the ballot. Typically, a Hawaii independent candidate can outpoll a minor party candidate running for the same office in that minor party’s primary. Sometimes an independent candidate in Hawaii will recruit a friend to file for the same office in a minor party primary. Then the friend does not campaign and polls a very small primary vote, so the independent has a good chance of exceeding his or her friend’s vote. Erum v Cayetano also says that any voter has standing to challenge a ballot access law.
NOOOO EP CL RE USA MACHINATIONS
SCOTUS PERVERSION OF 5 AMDT DP CL = EP — AT LEAST FOR RACE STUFF
Thank you for the posting. The suit has three basic theories. It is about far more than just independent candidates on the ballot. First Guam is a US territory and systems appear not to follow the federal laws that structured our government. Guam has never adopted a constitution which was allowed in federal law in 1976. Second, we there is a problem with party raiding here. There are a number of cases that address this point. Finally, Guam appears to have major voting rights act problems related to minorities running for office here. For example, 30% of Guam residents are Filipino and this group is rarely invited by the parties to run and the election statistics make this clear. When Guam had districts rather than an at large single district Filipinos were regularly elected. When our current primary system was adopted by the legislature years ago, it was specifically to address keeping independents off the general election ballot. The suit addresses the attorney general primary. Last year the primary was dropped for this office. But it can be added again later.
Thank you for the extra information. Your lawsuit may have a standing problem on some of the points you mention.
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