Mediation Fails in California Lawsuit over Party Labels on Ballot

Posted on by September 30, 2016
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A mediation conference was held on September 27 in the Ninth Circuit’s election law case, Soltysik v Padilla, 16-55758. The issue is the California law that lets some candidates for Congress and partisan state office have their party affiliation on the ballot, but bars this for other candidates for the same offices. The U.S. District Court had upheld the law. The plaintiffs are registered Socialists, but when they run for office, their party label on the ballot is “party preference: none.”

On September 29, both sides told the Ninth Circuit clerk that mediation had failed, so now the case will proceed to be briefed in the Ninth Circuit.

U.S. District Court Strikes Down Alabama Independent Petition Requirement as Applied to Special Elections with Limited Petitioning Time

Posted on by September 30, 2016
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On September 30, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, a Carter appointee, ruled that Alabama cannot require independent candidates, and unqualified parties, to comply with the 3% petition requirement, in instances when the petitioning time is limited. Hall v Merrill, m.d., 2:13cv-663. In this particular case, James Hall tried to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. House in a special election held in 2013. He needed 5,938 valid signatures and was only able to get 2,835. There were only 56 days between the date the deadline was set, and the deadline. However, the state argued that Hall really had 106 days to petition, because he could have been petitioning as soon as the incumbent member of Congress said he would resign soon, in the middle of his term.

Hall testified that he did try to collect signatures before the date of the special election was announced, but until the date of the special election was announced, virtually no member of the public was aware there would soon be a special congressional election, and it was thus especially difficult to get signatures during that period.

The decision is 68 pages and is very thorough. It points out that for a regularly-scheduled election, an independent candidate could take as long as ten years to finish his or her petition; the state doesn’t set a start date so there is essentially infinite time to collect the signatures. That is very different from a special election, which cannot be predicted.

California Republican Party Still Hasn’t Submitted its list of Presidential Elector Candidates

Posted on by September 30, 2016
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As of noon, Friday, September 30, the California Republican Party still hasn’t submitted its list of presidential elector candidates to the Secretary of State. The American Independent Party has already submitted its list of elector candidates. The lists are due October 1, but because that is Saturday, the actual deadline is Monday, October 3.

Until the Republican list is submitted, the public won’t know whether the names of the presidential elector candidates for each party’s slate match. Both parties nominated Donald Trump for President. But just because two parties nominate the same presidential candidate, it does not follow that each party necessarily files the same slate of presidential electors as the other party. This year in New York, both the Independence Party and the Libertarian Party nominated Gary Johnson. But each party submitted separate lists of elector candidates.

If the two California slates do not match, it will be impossible for California to know how many votes each candidate for presidential elector received. U.S. Code Title 3, section 6, requires each state to tell the National Archives how many valid votes each candidate for presidential elector receives. California does not let voters choose which slate of electors to vote for. Trump is on the ballot with only one box for the voter to choose. He is on as “Donald J. Trump, Republican, American Independent.” By contrast, in New York, the ballot has two Johnson squares: one square for voters to choose the Independence Party electors, and another square for the voters to choose the Libertarian electors.

Colorado Newspaper Story on How 22 Presidential Candidates for President Makes Difficulties for Preparing Ballot

Posted on by September 30, 2016
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This Colorado newspaper story discusses the November 8 ballot in Colorado, which lists 22 presidential candidates. No state in history ever before had more than 16 presidential candidates on a general election ballot, and that old record was also set by Colorado in both 2012 and 2008. Except for Colorado, the largest number of presidential candidates in November was the Iowa 1992 ballot, which had 14.