The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 16-580, at its January 6, 2017 conference. This is the lawsuit in which the Libertarian Party challenges the 2013 Ohio ballot access law. It is not related to the two ballot access cases in the Ohio state court system.
Ballot Access News
December 1, 2016 – Volume 32, Number 7
| This issue was printed on tan paper. |
Table of Contents
On December 28, the Ohio Supreme Court set out a briefing schedule for State ex rel Fockler v Husted, 2016-1863. The Libertarian brief is due January 3, 2017; the state brief is due January 6; the Libertarian reply is due January 11. The issue is whether the Gary Johnson vote last month created a new ballot-qualified party.
Alton, Illinois, holds a partisan city election on April 4, 2017. An independent candidate for Mayor, Danny Rauschkolb, filed a petition but that petition has been challenged. No one alleges he lacks enough valid signatures. But the challengers say he can’t run as an independent because he filed a petition to run in the Democratic primary for the same office earlier. That petition was rejected because he didn’t include a receipt showing he had filed a statement of economic interests.
This article explains the details. Illinois voter registration forms do not ask applicants for a choice of party, or whether the applicant is an independent. Therefore the challengers’ reliance on the U.S. Supreme Court opinion Storer v Brown is not fully relevant. Storer v Brown upheld a California law that required independent candidates not to have been registered members of a qualified party, but California had partisan registration.
Common Cause is sponsoring an on-line petition in support of the National Popular Vote Plan. Here is a link to the Common Cause web page about that.
