Greg Orman has this op-ed in the Hutchinson News, about the decision of Kansas TV station WIBW to exclude independent candidate Alan LaPolice from its upcoming debate. LaPolice is the first person to have qualified for a U.S. House seat as an independent candidate since 1984. He has substantial voter support, as Orman demonstrates. Yet WIBW won’t allow him into its U.S. House debate.
On August 15, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer revised her opinion in Johnson v Commission on Presidential Debates, 1:15cv-1580. Her original decision of August 5 had said that the Obama and Romney campaigns in 2012 had set the 15% polling threshold. The revised opinion says that the Commission on Presidential Debates set that rule and that the Obama and Romney campaigns had agreed to it.
She has not corrected her other factual errors: she omitted Ralph Nader from the list of presidential candidates who were on the ballot in states with a majority of the electoral college in 2004 yet polled under 1%; and she still lists Virgil Goode in 2012 as having been one of those candidates, when in fact he was not on the ballot in states containing a majority of the electoral college.
Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullen’s petition in Utah has enough valid signatures, according to the Utah elections office. He needed 1,000 valid signatures and the state said he had 1,083 valid. He submitted approximately 2,000 signatures.
On August 15, the West Virginia Secretary of State determined that the Constitution Party has enough valid signatures on its statewide petition. The petition includes nominees for President and Governor. No other statewide petition was submitted in West Virginia this year. The four qualified parties are Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican. Thanks to Jeff Becker for this news.
On August 15, Rocky De La Fuente, independent presidential candidate, sued Pennsylvania over the state’s rejection of his petition. De La Fuente is a registered Democrat in Florida. The state says independent candidates must not have been affiliated with a qualified party during the two months before filing. De La Fuente argues the state is misunderstanding its own law, and the law only pertains to qualified parties inside Pennsylvania.
In 1992, Ross Perot submitted his independent petition to Pennsylvania in June. His petition listed James Stockdale as his vice-presidential running mate. Stockdale had been a registered Republican in California until the middle of May 1992, but Pennsylvania did not bar Stockdale from the ballot.
The lawsuit is in U.S. District Court in the middle district, De La Fuente v Cortes, 1:16cv-1696. It is assigned to Judge John Jones.
