On March 2, Arkansas HB 1338 passed the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously. It makes it more difficult for general election presidential candidates to get on the ballot, whether they are independents or the nominees of unqualified parties. The bill had already passed the House last month. It increases the petition from 1,000 to 5,000. Thanks to John LaBeaume for this news.
Counterpunch has this article by Howie Hawkins, Green Party presidential nominee in 2020. The article attacks HR 1 for making it five times more difficult for presidential candidates to qualify for primary season matching funds. Thanks to the Institute for Free Speech for the link.
The Washington Times has become the first general news source to publicize a flaw in HR 1, the Democratic Party-backed election law bill in Congress. The bill makes it five times more difficult for presidential candidates to qualify for primary season matching funds. Primary season matching funds has helped many minor party and independent presidential candidates during the last 36 years: Sonia Johnson, Lenora Fulani, John Hagelin, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein.
Although HR 1 gets lots of attention from general news sources, until now none of those stories focused on that part of the bill. Here is the story.
Wyoming Representative Marshall Burt (Libertarian-Green River) has introduced HB 160. It changes the law on the order of candidates on the general election ballot. Current law puts the nominees of the party that got the most votes in that county for U.S. House on the top line, followed by the nominees of the party whose nominee for U.S. House came in second, and so on. Independent candidates are always listed last.
The bill changes this, so that every candidate has an equal chance to be listed first. Order would be alphabetical, but there would be a random rotation of the letters of the alphabet for that purpose. Thanks to Andy Craig for this news.
On March 1, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear two cases filed by Republican candidates for presidential elector over the November 2020 election returns. Bowyer v Ducey, 20-858, is from Arizona; Feehan v Wisconsin Elections Commission, 20-859, is from Wisconsin.
There are still two more November 2020 election returns cases pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. They are on conference for March 5, and are from Georgia and Wisconsin.
