Green Papers Has List of Presidential Candidates in Each State, Including Those Whose Write-ins Will be Counted

The Green Papers has this very useful list of which candidates in each state are qualified to receive votes. Scroll down to find the list of states. Click on any state to learn which candidates are on the ballot for president, with their label, and also which presidential candidates who are not on the ballot have qualified to have their write-ins tallied.

Also, use this link to see all 51 jurisdictions at once, although this link doesn’t show the ballot labels.

The deadline for filing for write-in status still hasn’t passed in 15 jurisdictions. Generally The Green Papers has not yet listed the write-in candidates in those places, but will do so when the deadline has passed. For example, the California write-in filing deadline is October 25, so The Green Papers does not yet list the California write-in candidates. From other sources, it is known that Evan McMullin and Rocky De La Fuente have already qualified as a write-in for California, but the California Secretary of State will not release any information on the write-in list until October 28. Therefore the Green Papers will wait to update its page for California and other states in which the deadline hasn’t passed. The other such jurisdictions are Alaska, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

In a few instances, the states release the names who have filed, as they file, without waiting for the deadline, so The Green Papers has the list for a few states in which the deadline has passed, although obviously the list in those states may grow.

Utah Presidential Poll Shows No Candidate is Above 26%

On October 12, Y2 Analytics released this presidential poll for Utah, showing that no presidential candidate has more than 26%. The results: Hillary Clinton 26%, Donald Trump 26%, Evan McMullin 22%, Gary Johnson 14%, Jill Stein 1%, other 3%, undecided 7%. Probably the bulk of the “other” vote is for Darrell Castle, because the Constitution Party is strong in Utah.

U.S. District Court Requires Florida to Extend Voter Registration Deadline Until October 18

On October 12, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker, an Obama appointee, ordered that the Florida deadline for voter registration be extended to October 18. Without the order, today would have been the last day to register to vote in Florida. The basis for the decision is the recent flooding. Florida Democratic Party v Scott, n.d. 4:16cv-626.

The Florida League of Women Voters had filed a similar lawsuit on October 11, League of Women Voters v Scott, 4:16cv633. Judge Walker combined the two cases. The hearing on October 12 for both cases started at 10 a.m., and the judge put out his one-page order at 10:48 a.m.

Oklahoma Lawsuit on Independent Presidential Ballot Access Law Begins to Advance

On June 14, 2016, Rocky De La Fuente sued Oklahoma over the requirement that independent presidential candidates this year need 40,047 valid signatures. Since then, Jill Stein has intervened in the case, De La Fuente v Ziriax, w.d., 5:16cv-914.

Although it is too late for this lawsuit to affect who gets on the ballot this year, the case is beginning to move, and a decision on declaratory relief is likely next year. On October 7 the state filed a motion to dismiss, relying entirely on the point that the Oklahoma presidential petition requirement has been upheld in the past.

The state’s brief does not acknowledge that the Oklahoma law has changed since those earlier precedents, which were from 1996 and 2000. Back then, as difficult as the independent presidential petition was, at least it required fewer signatures than the Oklahoma petition for a newly-qualifying party. But ever since 2015, Oklahoma has required fewer signatures for a new party than for an independent presidential candidate. Courts in other states have struck down independent candidate petition requirements when they were more difficult than the party petition requirements, in Alabama, Florida, Maryland, and North Carolina. This year Oklahoma required 24,745 signatures for a party, which makes it difficult to explain why the state needs 40,047 for a single independent presidential candidate.

The Oklahoma law also changed in 2016 on a separate matter. The old law required the names of all the presidential candidates to be listed on the ballot, but the new law does not. The bill that made this change is SB 1108. The new law gives the State Election Board the power to decide whether to print the names of the electors on the ballot. For 2016, there are only three presidential candidates on the ballot, and there aren’t many state ballot measures, so the entire ballot can fit on a single piece of paper. Therefore, for this year, the State Election Board decided to leave the electors’ names on the ballot.

George Skelton, Los Angeles Times Columnist, Admits California’s U.S. Senate Race is Boring

George Skelton, long-time political columnnist for the Los Angeles Times, says this year’s California race for U.S. Senate is very boring. Skelton is a fervent supporter of the California top-two system. At the end of his column, he says that some may blame the top-two system for the boring character of the race. But he says that idea is “nonsense.” What he does not say is that all of California’s races for Governor and U.S. Senator, since top-two started, have been boring.

In 2012, the first top-two year, the U.S. Senate race in November was between Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic incumbent, and Elizabeth Emken, a Republican.

In 2014, the next top-two year, the gubernatorial race was between incumbent Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and Republican Neel Kashkari.

The 2012 Senate race, and the 2014 gubernatorial race, were also unanimously considered by political observers to be boring. One characteristic of an interesting race is that there are more than two candidates in that race.

People like Skelton admitted that the 2012 Senate race and the 2014 gubernatorial race were boring, but said that was only because a popular incumbent was running for re-election. But now 2016 has brought California its first U.S. Senate race since 1992 with no incumbent, and, yes, it is still boring.