H.R. 1 Would Make it Far Tougher for Presidential Candidates to Get Primary Season Matching Funds

Posted on by January 14, 2019
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HR 1, the bill supported by almost all Democrats in the U.S. House, would make it far more difficult for presidential candidates to receive primary matching funds. Current law requires the candidate to receive $5,000 in small donations in each of 20 states. The bill changes that to $25,000 from each of 20 states. The bill also lowers the amount any individual can donate for purposes of qualification, from $250 to $200. Here is the 571-page bill. The part on primary season matching funds starts on page 422. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link to the bill. It still isn’t posted to the web page for Congress.

Libertarian Party Sets a New Record for Number of States with Legislative Candidates

Posted on by January 13, 2019
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In 2018, the Libertarian Party had candidates for the state legislature on the ballot in all but five states. This was the first time any party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, had legislative candidates on the ballot in that many states, since 1916. The five states with no Libertarians on the ballot for legislature in 2018 were Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, and North Dakota.

This excludes the states that don’t have legislative elections in even years, which are Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia.

All of the 2018 Libertarian candidates had the ballot label “Libertarian” except for the Tennessee candidates, who had “independent.”

The Libertarian Party had legislative candidates in all but six states in 2000, which is the closest any third party had come in previous years.

In 2016, there were eleven states that had legislative elections in which the Libertarians had no legislative candidates: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming. There were 14 such states in 2014; 14 in 2012; 12 in 2010; 15 in 2008; 19 in 2006; 9 in 2004; 7 in 2002; 14 in 1998; and 11 in 1996.

Arizona Government Defends Decision Not to Hold a Special U.S. Senate Election to Fill McCain Seat Until 2020

Posted on by January 11, 2019
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On January 11, attorneys for the Arizona state government filed this brief in Tedards v Ducey, 2:18cv-4241. The issue is whether the state should hold a special election to fill Senator John McCain’s seat earlier than November 2020. McCain died in August 2018. The state says it has three interests in not holding a special election in 2019: (1) to save taxpayer money; (2) a special election would have low turnout; (3) there wouldn’t be much time for a candidate to raise money for a campaign, so having a special election would favor wealthy candidates.

Indiana Ballot Access Bill Introduced

Posted on by January 11, 2019
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Indiana State Senator Greg Walker has again introduced his bill to ease ballot access for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. It is SB 571. It lowers the statewide petition from 2% of the last Secretary of State vote (now 44,934 signatures) to exactly 4,500 signatures. That figure is what candidates need to get themselves on the primary ballot of the major parties, if they are running for President, Governor, or U.S. Senator.

The text of the bill will be available next week. Thanks to Craig Marolf for this news.

No statewide petition in Indiana has succeeded (under the existing 2% law) since 2000. Indiana is one of four states in which Ralph Nader never got on the ballot, even though he placed third in three presidential elections, 2000, 2004, and 2008. The other such states were Georgia, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, all of which have eased their ballot access laws since Nader last ran.

Jill Stein Campaign Wins Court Ruling on Whether, After Examining Wisconsin Voting Software, She is Free to Criticize It

Posted on by January 11, 2019
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On December 21, 2018, a Wisconsin state trial court issued an opinion in Election Systems & Software v Wisconsin Elections Commission, Dane Co., 18-cv-972. The issue was what the Wisconsin Elections Commission should have agreed to, relative to Jill Stein’s request to examine the ES&S software used to count votes in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is one of the three states in which Stein had requested a recount of the November 2016 presidential vote.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission prepared a contract with the Stein campaign, letting the campaign’s experts examine the software, if they promised not to disclose it. That contract was prepared in March 2018. Then ES&S sued to force the Elections Commission to revise the contract, so that it prohibited Stein’s experts from criticizing the software. But the Court said the Elections Commission is under no obligation to do that.

The court made this analogy: “A nutritionist might be given access to the secret formula for Coca Cola, which is undeniably proprietary information and a trade secret. It would not be an unauthorized use or a disclosure of the trade secret for the nutritionist to say, “After seeing the secret formula, I can tell you that Coca Cola is unhealthy.”