On January 26, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed the bill that draws new U.S. House district boundaries. Thus Pennsylvania, like so many other populous states this year, will have trouble settling redistricting in time for its scheduled primary, which is in May. See this story.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s website now has the petition requirements for independent candidates for U.S. House, and the nominees of parties that didn’t poll 20% of the vote for president or governor in the last election. The requirements range from 21,681 signatures to 27,703 signatures. See them here.
In the entire history of the United States, there are only six instances when any candidate completed a petition for U.S. House that required more than 10,000 signatures. The biggest hurdle ever overcome was in North Carolina in 2010, when a petition requirement of 16,292 was overcome, with the help of a very powerful union, the S.E.I.U. It had dozens of full-time petitioners who went door-to-door throughout the district.
On January 27, Judge Beth Robinson, a judge of the Second Circuit and a Biden appointee, ordered that the New York minor party appeals already filed can be consolidated with the new similar appeal filed by the same parties. The state of New York had tried to persuade the Second Circuit not to allow the consolidation. The issue in cases 21-1464, 22-44, and 21-139, all concern the hostile ballot access changes made in April 2020. The number of signatures for the statewide petition was tripled, and the vote test increased from 50,000 to (currently) approximately 170,000 votes.
If the consolidation had not been permitted, the minor parties would have had to do a great deal of work re-submitting evidence that has already been submitted.
One set of documents concerned injunctive relief, and the other set concerns declaratory relief.
Ballot Access News
January 2022 – Volume 37, Number 8
| This issue was printed on green paper. |
Table of Contents
Proponents of ranked choice voting will attempt to qualify a statewide initiative to use ranked choice voting in Oregon primaries and general elections. It they succeed, it would be on the ballot in 2024.
