The Hill TV has a regular show called “The Hill’s Rising with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.” This ten-minute segment discusses Democratic Party efforts to remove Green Party candidates in Texas, Montana, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Generally Ball represents progressive views and Enjeti presents conservative views, but they agree with each other in this piece.
On September 11, Bill Redpath, Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. House, Illinois Sixth District, won his ballot access lawsuit in state trial court. Bixler v Illinois State Board of Elections, Sangamon Co., 20 MR 775.
The Illinois Board of Elections had determined that Redpath had enough valid signatures. Persons associated with the Republican Party then sued the State Board, arguing that he should be removed from the ballot. The basis for the challenge was that the some of his signers had already voted in the March 2020 primary. The challengers showed that if the primary voters were excluded, then Redpath didn’t have enough valid signatures.
There is no Illinois law saying that primary voters can’t sign for an independent candidate, or the nominee of an unqualified party. There was once a law barring primary voters from signing for an independent candidate, but it had been repealed in 1975. Nevertheless, the objectors claimed that it is intrinsically true that a primary voter can’t sign a general election petition, because that is equivalent to “voting twice.”
Here is the 3-page court order. It does not discuss the theory set forth by the objectors. It just says the decision to put Redpath on the ballot is in accord with the law.
On August 23, Gail Fenumiai, Director of the Alaska Elections Division, sent a letter to Scott Kohlhaas, Libertarian Party nominee for state house, district 16. It says she won’t print “Libertarian” next to his name on the ballot, even though Alaska Statute 15.25.180 says independent petitions may contain the name of the “political group, if any”, and even though 15.25.190 says, “The director shall place the names and the political group affiliation of persons who have been properly nominated by petition on the general election ballot.”
The letter does not make reference to any Alaska election law.
The Kohlhaas petition identified him as the Libertarian Party candidate, and Kohlhaas is a registered Libertarian.
The director also says she will no longer print the party affiliation of persons nominated by qualified parties on the ballot. Instead she will only print the name of the party that nominated them. In 2018, the ballot contained both pieces of information. This year the Democratic nominees for U.S. Senate and U.S. House are both registered independents, and the candidates desire that the ballot reflect their independent affiliation. Here is a news story about removing the affiliation of the two Democratic nominees.
On September 14, an Oregon state court judge ruled that the Republican Party was not 29 seconds too late to submit its statement for the Oregon Voters Guide. The Secretary of State had earlier rejected the party’s submission on the grounds that it was late. The judge said what counts is the moment at which the party handed over the document, not the moment when the election official processed it. See this story. Thanks to Steve Kemp for the link. The Secretary of State says she will comply, but she will also appeal.
The Rhode Island to place Howie Hawkins on the ballot failed to gather the needed 1,000 signatures. For a while the campaign hoped to be able to re-validate enough signatures, but in the end it seems only 897 signatures were valid.
