Ohio Government Will Respond to Libertarian Party Ballot Status Lawsuit by January 5, 2017

Posted on by December 28, 2016
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There are many pending constitutional ballot access cases, but only one is moving quickly. That is State ex rel Fockler v Husted, pending in the Ohio Supreme Court. The government will file its response by January 5, 2017. The issue is the meaning of that part of the Ohio election code that says “any group of voters” who sponsor a candidate in the general election for Governor or President will have created a new party, if that candidate gets 3% of the vote.

Other states will pending constitutional ballot access cases are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

Other constitutional pending election lawsuits related to minor parties include the two case on presidential debates, and the case on the order of candidates on the ballot. The major parties have lawsuits pending on the rules for their primaries in Hawaii and Montana. Lawsuits over the rights of presidential electors (filed by major party electors) are pending in California, Colorado, and Washington.

For First Time, Virginia Won’t Tally Write-in Votes for Declared Presidential Candidates

Posted on by December 27, 2016
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This year, the Virginia State Board of Elections won’t tally the number of votes received by the various declared write-in presidential candidates. This is the first time the Board has failed to count such votes since Virginia has had write-in space on the November ballot for President. Before 1997, Virginia ballots lacked any write-in space for president, but SB 667 in 1997 added write-in space to the presidential part of the ballot. It passed unanimously.

The Board says the law forbids the votes from being tallied unless the write-in total was at least 5% of the total presidential vote. However, the law the Board cites, 24.2-675, has existed since before 1997. Yet in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012, the Board did tally write-ins for declared presidential write-in candidates.

The declared write-in candidates in 2016 who are injured by this law include Darrell Castle, Rocky De La Fuente, Tom Hoefling, Chris Keniston, Larry Kotlikoff, Mike Maturen, all of whom did have their votes counted in a majority of states.

In 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court said in Gray v Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, at 380: “All qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right to cast their votes and have them counted. Every voter’s vote is entitled to be counted once. It must be correctly counted and reported.”

Gubernatorial Totals by Party, 2016

Posted on by December 26, 2016
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Here are national totals for gubernatorial races, by party, for the November 2016 election:

Republican 9,688,152
Democratic 9,288,358
Libertarian 392,890
Green 69,107
Independent Party of Oregon 47,481
Constitution 23,441
Independent American 15,912
Liberty Union 8,912

Independent candidates got 30,019. UPDATE: totals have been corrected to fix a Delaware error. Thanks to Greg Koza for that.