Green Party Takes Action to Get All its Votes Listed, in Election Returns Published by U.S. Government

Posted on by October 11, 2014
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Ever since 1920, the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives has published a booklet after each congressional election, listing the election returns for each candidate for Congress in the general election. Starting in 1930, the booklet also has a table in the back, listing the national vote total for U.S. House, and for U.S. Senate, for each party. The national vote totals for U.S. House by party are of particular interest these days, because it has become known that Democrats in 2012 polled 1,600,000 more votes in the nation for U.S. House than Republicans did, yet Republicans won the most seats.

Unfortunately, for many years, the federal employees who prepare the book have given inconsistent treatment to the Green Party, relative to the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party of Minnesota is on the ballot as “Democratic-Farmer-Labor” and the Democratic Party of North Dakota is on the ballot as “Democratic-Non-Partisan League.” The booklet always includes Democratic votes from Minnesota and North Dakota in the “Democratic” column in the table in the back.

But the Green Party also has a different name in certain states, and the booklet in recent years does not include Green votes in the “Green” column from those states. Instead those votes are put in the “other parties” column. Therefore, the Green Party votes from Maine, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and Oregon are generally omitted from the national Green Party column and the national totals are artificially low.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has now received a formal certification from the Green Party national office, certifying that the Mountain Party of West Virginia, the Statehood Green Party of D.C., the Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts, the Pacific Green Party of Oregon, and the Green Independent Party of Maine, are all members of the Green Party national committee. It is believed Congresswoman Pelosi will help to fix the problem with the Clerk’s booklet, hopefully in time for the 2014 version. Generally the Clerk takes about five months after an election to finish the book.

Third Way, a Think Tank in Washington, D.C., Releases Voter Registration Information but Omits all Minor Party Registrants

Posted on by October 11, 2014
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Third Way, a think tank in Washington, D.C., recently released voter registration data for all the states in which voters are asked on voter registration forms to choose a political party (or independent status). However, Third Way’s report only includes voters who are registered Republican, Democratic, and independent. There is no mention in the Report that approximately 2.4% of the nation’s voters (in the states that ask for party membership) are members of minor parties.

Some of the “independent” totals for certain states in the Third Way report do include minor party members, but the report does not tell its readers that this is the case. For certain other states, minor party members are completely outside any of the three columns, so that anyone using Third Way’s report to know the number of registered voters in that state will get an incomplete total.

The officers of Third Way have been asked to improve the Report. The initial response has been negative; an officer of Third Way said in an e-mail that their readers are not interested in knowing how many minor party registrants there are. Third Way has a large Board of Trustees, and a communication has been sent to each member of the Board. A majority of the Board members are associated with the banking and hedge fund industry. Here is a link to the Report. Ballot Access News encourages anyone to contact members of the Board of Trustees, or any one of them. Here is a list of the Board of Trustees.

New York Upstate Ballots Squeeze Libertarian Party Into Same Row as “Stop Common Core” Party

Posted on by October 11, 2014
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Even though New York state no longer uses mechanical voting machines, election authorities in that state continue to design ballots as though mechanical voting machines still exist. Here is the New York November 2014 ballot for counties outside New York city. Instead of listing all the candidates for Governor in an uninterrupted column, the ballot squeezes two gubernatorial candidates into the same row. The “Stop Common Core” Party, which is just a Republican Party-supported extra column for Republican nominees, and the Libertarian, are squeezed into column I.

The six qualified parties are entitled to the top six lines, so the Green Party, which has been ballot-qualified for the last two elections, was not at risk of being put into such a bad spot on the ballot.

U.S. District Court Judge Issues Written Opinion in South Dakota Over Whether Parties May Nominate Non-Members

Posted on by October 11, 2014
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On October 10, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol issued his written opinion in South Dakota Libertarian Party v Gant, 14-cv-4132. This is the case over whether the state should have put the Libertarian Party’s nominee for Public Service Commissioner on the November ballot. The judge had denied relief on August 28, but only now has issued a written opinion. Here is the 12-page opinion.

One of the most important parts of the decision has been relegated to a footnote. See footnote 4, which says that the party’s own bylaws prohibit it from nominating a non-member. Generally, for a political party freedom of association lawsuit to succeed, there must be a conflict between a party’s bylaws and a state law. That is not the case in this lawsuit.