New Hampshire Representative Will Pearson (D-Keene) has submitted a bill drafting request to the legislature’s staff. Representative Pearson wants a bill to provide that a legislative committee should study what the law should be, relative to a party remaining on the ballot. This was at the request of the Libertarian Party. The party is on the ballot now, but the retention law is quite difficult relative to other states.
On November 8, 2016, Green Party nominee Mark Salazar easily set a new record for a Green Party nominee for U.S. Congress. He ran in the Arizona 8th district, which is centered on the western suburbs of Phoenix. His only ballot-listed opponent was incumbent Republican Congressman Trent Franks. Salazar received 93,954 votes, 31.43%. Salazar is a Green Party leader and the state party treasurer.
The last time the Democrats ran in this district, they didn’t do much better than Salazar. A Democrat ran in 2012 and got 35.06%.
No other Green Party nominee for Congress had ever polled as much as 25% of the vote. The previous highest percentages for Green nominees for U.S. House were: (1) in Arkansas in 2008, 23.22%; (2) in Pennsylvania in 2002, 22.32%. Also an Independent Green Party nominee in Virginia in 2006 polled 23.54%.
On December 9, some leaders of the American Independent Party, and independent presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente, filed a lawsuit in state court in Sacramento, charging that the Secretary of State broke several election laws, and asking for a court order that in the future, he and his successors follow the election laws. De La Fuente v Padilla, Superior Court, Sacramento.
Rocky De La Fuente asks for an order that in the future, write-in presidential candidates not be rejected just because some of their presidential elector candidates list addresses on their declaration of candidacy forms that are different than the registration addresses.
Leaders of the American Independent Party ask for an order that, in the future, Secretaries of State not accept presidential elector candidates who do not meet the constitutional qualifications to serve as presidential electors. The Complaint charges that the Secretary of State accepted a Republican presidential elector who holds an office of trust or profit with the United States.
Section 7300 of the California election code specifies that certain particular Republican “nominees” will always become Republican presidential electors (for example, the Republican nominees for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer, Controller, Attorney General, and Secretary of State), and that this law was ignored. Of course, the law is obsolete, because no party any longer has nominees for those offices.
The complaint and the papers to be filed in the future will attempt to show that the Republican Party was late with its list of electors. The lawsuit argues that in the future, the deadline must be enforced.
The AIP also asks that future ballots tell the voters that they are voting for presidential electors, not just for president and vice-president. The Complaint points out that Sacramento County ballots did tell the voters that they are voting for presidential electors, but no other counties did that.
The AIP argues that it was illegal for the ballots in many counties to list abbreviate the party’s name as simply “AI”.
Here is the Complaint.
An Indiana legislator has taken the first step to introduce a bill to improve ballot access. He has submitted a request to the legislative counsel to draft a bill to lower the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. It is somewhat likely that the bill will lower the petition from 2% of the last vote for Secretary of State (34,195 signatures for the 2012 election, and 26,700 for the 2016 election) to exactly 9,000 signatures.
The Texas Tribune has gathered data on write-ins for president last month in three of the state’s biggest counties, Harris, Tarrant, and Travis. The reporters learned information about write-ins for candidates who had not registered as write-in candidates. Over 4,000 write-ins were cast for Bernie Sanders. Thanks to Gene Armistead for the link.
