According to Michael Drucker’s story at TheIndependentView, the documents recently filed by the New York Women’s Equality Party, listing party officers and bylaws, are legally defective.

When a group that had not previously been a qualified party polls at least 50,000 votes for Governor, it becomes a qualified party in New York. However, it must then file a list of its officers and its bylaws. The documents must be signed by a majority of the group’s statewide candidates in the preceding general election. The Women’s Equality Party nominated four statewide candidates (all of them were also the Democratic and Independence Party nominees). Only two of them signed the documents. The party’s nominees for Attorney General and Comptroller did not sign the documents. This may mean that the Women’s Equality Party won’t be able to function as a qualified party in this year’s elections.

The two candidates who didn’t sign are Eric Schneiderman, the state’s Attorney General, and Tom DiNapoli, the state Comptroller. It is likely that they are sophisticated in matters of election law and they are deliberately not interested in helping establish the Women’s Equality Party; this does not appear to be an accident. It is plausible that the Working Families Party asked Schneiderman and DiNapoli to abstain from signing. The Working Families Party opposed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s idea of creating the Women’s Equality Party.

The New York November 2014 ballot did not let voters choose to vote for Schneiderman or DiNapoli on the Women’s Equality line. Instead the ballot put the label “Women’s Equality” inside the same box on the ballot that was used for voters to vote for those two candidates on the Independence Party line.

Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”, said on Sunday, July 5, that he is surprised no strong presidential candidate has emerged who is running outside the two major parties.

Historically, such candidates don’t emerge until the election year itself. Theodore Roosevelt didn’t decide to organize his Progressive Party until June 1912, after Roosevelt had been defeated for the Republican presidential nomination. Robert La Follette didn’t announce as an independent progressive candidate until July 4, 1924, after it became apparent the Democratic national convention wouldn’t nominate a progressive. Strom Thurmond didn’t launch his States Rights campaign for the presidency until July 1948, after the Democratic national convention had voted to add a civil rights plank. Ross Perot didn’t even hint that he would be an independent candidate for president until February 20, 1992, the night he said on Larry King’s interview show that he would run as an independent only if his supporters successfully petitioned to get his name on the ballot in all 50 states.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze took note of the nation’s history to justify striking down early petition deadlines for independent and new political parties. The reason strong presidential candidates don’t emerge until the election year is that everyone is waiting to see who the major parties will nominate, and at this point no one can predict the Republican nominee, and even the Democratic nominee is not certain to be Hillary Clinton. Thanks to Presidential Debate News for the link.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has this news story about Virginia’s presidential primary ballot access petition requirement. The link goes to a reprint of the story in another Virginia newspaper, the Star Exponent.