California holds presidential primaries for six parties on June 7, 2016. The Libertarian Party has asked the state to list the same twelve presidential candidates on its primary ballot who are now listed on the national party’s web page. They are: Marc Allan Feldman, John Hale, Cecil Ince, Gary Johnson, Steve Kerbel, John McAfee, Darryl Perry, Austin Petersen, Derrick Michael Reed, Jack Robinson Jr., Rhett Smith, and Joy Waymire.
On January 19, the Libertarian Party of Ohio filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the 2013 law on how newly-qualifying parties get on the ballot violates the Ohio Constitution.
The party has been trying for months to persuade federal courts in Ohio that the 2013 law violates the Ohio Constitution, but the federal courts have said that this issue belongs in state court. Normally it is true that federal courts can’t decide whether state laws violate a state Constitution. But there are exceptions, although in this case the federal courts don’t think the exceptions apply.
The new case in state court is Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, 16-cv-554. The Ohio Constitution appears to say that all parties must nominate by primary. In presidential years the Ohio primary for all office is in March. But the 2013 law says new parties must submit petitions by July of an election year, and then they nominate without a primary (obviously they can’t nominate by primary, because the primary is already over). The new law implies, but does not say, that new parties should nominate by convention.
If the 2013 legislative session had done a good job, it would have set in motion the process to amend the Ohio Constitution, so that it would no longer say new parties nominate by primary. The Ohio Constitution is the only Constitution in the entire U.S. that mandates that all parties nominate by primary. The Oklahoma Constitution says that the legislature may provide that all parties nominate by primary, but the Oklahoma Constitution does not say the legislature must do this.
Oklahoma State Senator Ron Justice (R-Chickasha) has introduced SB 1108. It would allow the State Election Board authority to leave candidates for presidential elector off the ballot. Instead, a list of presidential elector candidates would be posted in each polling place.
Oklahoma is one of only five states that still prints the names of all presidential elector candidates on the ballot. The others are Arizona, Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Long ago all states printed the names of the candidates for elector on the ballot, and let voters vote for individual electors. The last state to let voters vote for particular candidates for president elector was Vermont, in 1976.
Leaving the electors off the ballot simplifies the ballot and makes it somewhat shorter. The Oklahoma Election Board supports this bill. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
On January 19, the plaintiffs in Benezet Consulting v Cortes asked for injunctive relief. The issues in the case are three Pennsylvania ballot access restrictions for primary petitions: (1) the ban on out-of-state circulators; (2) the requirement that each petition sheet be notarized; (3) the ban on a voter signing two different petitions for the same office.
Primary petitioning in Pennsylvania starts on January 26 and ends on February 16, so the judge is likely to act on the request quickly. The same three restrictions were struck down as applied to general election petitions last year, and the state didn’t appeal that decision. The new case tries to get the same relief for primary petitions. The plaintiffs include a professional petitioning company.
Although the primary case was originally assigned to Judge John Jones, it has been re-assigned to Judge Yvette Kane, a Clinton appointee.
Two Virginia legislators have introduced HB 806, to provide that the voter registration form ask applicants to choose a party, or to choose independent status. The authors are L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Woodbridge) and R. Steven Landers (R-Verona).
The bill is deficient, because it says that independents cannot vote in party primaries. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1986 in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that each party with a primary has the right to decide for itself whether to let independents vote in its primary. The bill should acknowledge this, and should set out procedures for parties to notify the State Board of Elections whether they wish independents to vote in their primaries or not.
The bill is also deficient because it doesn’t permit applicants to register into an unqualified party. This is especially important in Virginia, because Virginia’s definition of “political party” is so strict that only the Democratic and Republican Parties have been qualified for the last 18 years. The only other states for which that is true are Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. Thanks to Bill Redpath for the news about the bill.
