West Virginia Newspaper Story on How Election Officials Coped with Contradictory Ballot Access Rulings

Posted on by September 23, 2016
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This West Virginia newspaper story describes how county election officials were first ordered to remove various independent candidates from the November ballot (due to a State Supreme Court decision) and then were ordered to keep them on the ballot (due to a federal court decision a few days later). Fortunately for some county election officials, the original printed ballots had listed the candidates, and nothing had been done to block out their names, so the original ballots could be used.

Rocky De La Fuente Sues Virginia Over Requirement that Candidates for Presidential Elector Must Include Full Social Security Number on Declaration of Candidacy

Posted on by September 23, 2016
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On September 21, Rocky De La Fuente sued Virginia over its requirement that candidates for presidential elector must provide their full Social Security number to the State Board of Elections, before the petition for presidential ballot access may begin to circulate. De La Fuente v Alcorn, e.d., 1:16cv-1201.

The state form says the number is needed to identify the candidate in the voter rolls. This seems obviously not true. The form also asks for the voter’s name and address. That should be sufficient to identify the individual.

De La Fuente’s complaint says he was not able to circulate his petition as early as he otherwise would have, because so many potential presidential elector candidates refused to become candidates for presidential elector once they saw they had to provide their full Social Security Number.

Ninth Circuit Won’t Strike Down Arizona’s February Petition Deadline Because Green Party Submitted No Evidence that Early Deadline Injured It

Posted on by September 23, 2016
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On September 23, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Arizona Green Party v Reagan, 14-15976, saying that the party’s challenge to the February petition deadline for new parties fails because the Green Party submitted no evidence that the deadline is harmful. The decision is only 18 pages long and lays great emphasis on the party’s lack of evidence.

Page 14 says, “We do not know how difficult it was for the Green Party to collect the required signatures, how much the signature-gathering effort cost, whether petition efforts diverted the Party’s resources from other endeavors, whether the ‘mind of the general public’ was diverted from the election at the time the Party sought to collect the signatures, how difficult it has been for new parties to comply with the deadline historically, or even if the Party attempted to comply with the deadline at all. Without evidence, the burdens identified in the Green Party’s complaint are purely speculative.

The case arose in the 2014 election, when the party was unable to obtain the needed 23,041 valid signatures by the February 28 deadline. It did finish the petition by May 2014, and sued at that time. The petition submitted in May 2014 did have enough valid signatures, and the state used the petition to put the party on the ballot for the 2016 election, so the effort wasn’t entirely wasted.

McMullin Supporters Protest in Florida Governor’s Office Over Ballot Exclusion

Posted on by September 23, 2016
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On September 22, supporters of Evan McMullin protested his exclusion from the Florida ballot by dropping off 300 muffins at Governor Rick Scott’s office. Unexplained is why the McMullin campaign has not sued Florida over its unconstitutional ballot access laws for president. Florida won’t print the presidential nominee of a qualified party on the ballot unless it is recognized by the Federal Election Commission as a national committee, or unless it submits 119,316 signatures by July 15. UPDATE: also see this story, which says that Governor Scott’s office refused to accept the muffins.

The problem with using FEC recognition to determine ballot status is that there is no correlation whatsoever between whether the FEC recognizes a party as a national committee, and how much voter support it has. The FEC will not recognize a new party until after it has gone through a presidential election, so the Florida law discriminates against new parties. Also, even after a party has participated in its first election, the FEC rules for recognition have no objective standards. The FEC rejected the Green Party for national committee status in 1997, even though the Green Party had polled 685,040 votes for President in 1996. The FEC rejected John Anderson’s National Unity Party request for national committee status in 1981, even though it had polled 5,720,060 votes in 1980. But the FEC recognized the Socialist Party in 1980, even though it only polled 6,898 votes for President that year. The FEC recognizes the Reform Party as a national committee, even though it polled 820 votes in 2012 in the entire nation, and 481 votes in the entire nation in 2008.

The existing Secretary of State in 2011 acknowledged the flaws in Florida’s law, but last month he reversed the 2011 ruling. The Party for Socialism & Liberation, and America’s Party, so far have not been able to find an attorney who will file a lawsuit. But Evan McMullin’s campaign has two attorneys in Florida, and inexplicably they refuse to sue Florida on behalf of McMullin.

Independent Candidate for U.S. House from Illinois Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Put Him on Ballot

Posted on by September 23, 2016
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On September 23, David Gill, the independent candidate for U.S. House, 13th district of Illinois, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore him to the ballot. He had been put on the ballot on August 25 by a U.S. District Court, but then removed from the ballot by the Seventh Circuit. The case is Gill v Scholz.