National Public Radio station WGOU has this story about the pending lawsuit in Oklahoma over the independent presidential petition signature requirements. The plaintiffs are Rocky De La Fuente and Jill Stein.
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On August 15, the Ohio Libertarian Party submitted paperwork with the Secretary of State, to substitute its actual presidential and vice-presidential nominees for the stand-ins who were listed on the party’s independent candidate petition. August 15 is the deadline for that paperwork.
Section 3513.31(F) permits stand-ins for all office, for independent candidate petitions. The Secretary of State’s office has been making the Libertarian Party nervous. First the Secretary of State’s office said it wasn’t sure that substitution is permitted for president and vice-president, even though it was used in Ohio by John Anderson for vice-president in 1980; by the Constitution Party for vice-president in 1996, 2000, and 2004; by the Reform Party for vice-president in 2000; by Ralph Nader for vice-president in 2004; and by the Libertarian Party for both president and vice-president in 1996.
Then the Secretary of State’s office started saying that the substitution paperwork can’t be submitted until after the validity of the petition has been checked, and that this job can’t be done by August 15. But there is no law or regulation that says the paperwork can’t be submitted until after the petition has been checked. This newspaper article says the Secretary of State’s office estimates the signatures will have been checked by August 19.
Canada is beginning to look seriously at alternative voting systems. Supporters of the status quo in Canada have pointed to flaws in Australia’s voting system as a reason for Canada to keep “first-past-the-post” voting. This article in the Canadian Press points out peculiarities in Australia, and notes that just because Australia’s system is flawed, it does not follow logically that all alternate voting systems are flawed.
The Australian flaws are: (1) for Parliamentary elections for lower house, Australia uses instant-runoff voting, but with the peculiar rule that voters are required to rank every candidate on the ballot, or the ballot is invalid; (2) for the Australian Senate, which uses ranked-choice voting for parties (not candidates), voters who don’t express a full range of choices are deemed to have voted according to the wishes of the party they do vote for.
On August 13, the Minnesota Independence Party, which is not ballot-qualified, nominated Evan McMullin for President. Here is a copy of his petition, which must be printed out on legal-size paper. It is due August 23 and needs 2,000 signatures. Thanks to American Third Party Report for this news.
Earlier this year, the Mississippi legislature passed SB 2167. It requires general election presidential candidates to pay a fee of $2,500, whether they are independents or the nominees of qualified parties. The bill was signed into law April 6, 2016, and took effect July 1, 2016.
Presidential nominees of qualified parties can avoid the fee if they submit 1,000 signatures.
The bill passes the Senate 43-7 and passed the House 93-25. Thanks to Mark Dunlea for the news.