Ballot Access News
December 1, 2016 – Volume 32, Number 7

1. MAINE VOTERS PASS INITIATIVE TO USE INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING FOR CONGRESS AND ALL STATE OFFICE
2. SOUTH DAKOTA VOTERS REJECT NON-PARTISAN ELECTIONS
3. COLORADO VOTERS PASS THREE ELECTION LAW MEASURES
4. BENTON COUNTY, OREGON, PASSES INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING
5. COURT INVALIDATES WISCONSIN GERRYMANDER
6. TWO DE LA FUENTE BALLOT ACCESS CASES SURVIVE MOTIONS TO DISMISS
7. OCTOBER 2016 REGISTRATION TOTALS
8. 2016 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE (NOT FINAL!)
9. 2018 PETITIONING FOR STATEWIDE OFFICE
10. VERMONT PROGRESSIVE PARTY ELECTS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
11. GUAM PRESIDENTIAL VOTE
12. OTHER MINOR PARTY WINS IN PARTISAN ELECTIONS
13. NEW YORK REFORM PARTY BREAKS FREE FROM REPUBLICAN CONTROL
14. SUBSCRIBING TO BAN WITH PAYPAL

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.

On December 28, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that declared write-in presidential candidates must submit the name of a proposed vice-presidential running mate. Carlson v Simon, A16-1533. Here is the 12-page decision, which says, in essence, presidential candidates who qualify to have their names printed on the November ballot must have a running mate, so it is not unfair to require declared write-in presidential candidates to also have a running mate.

The case was filed by Steve Carlson, whose presidential campaign was so insubstantial, he was not on the ballot in any state and he did not file as a declared write-in presidential candidate in any state except Minnesota. It is ironic that anyone sued Minnesota over its write-in presidential procedures, because Minnesota has one of the most permissive such laws in the nation. Write-in presidential candidates need not file until seven days before the election, and they only need one presidential elector candidate. Minnesota is so easy, there were 24 declared write-in presidential candidates, and Minnesota tallied the votes for each of them, except that Carlson received no tally because he didn’t submit a v-p candidate.

States that ought to be sued by declared presidential write-in candidates are the ones that won’t tally the votes of such candidates: Alaska, D.C., Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Thanks to Jim Ivey for the link.