On August 4, a Connecticut trial court in Danbury will hear arguments in a lawsuit to determine who the legitimate state officers of the Independent Party are. See this story. The reference to the court date is at the very end of the article. The Independent Party is ballot-qualified in Connecticut for all the statewide offices except President, and for one of the U.S. House districts, 16 State Senate districts, and 39 state House districts.
On July 31, U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell granted injunctive relief against Pennsylvania’s ban on out-of-state circulators. Green Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, eastern district, 2:14cv-3299. The judge ruled from the bench after a hearing that lasted somewhat less than two hours.
The judge declined at this time to enjoin the regulations that say only registered voters may sign petitions, even though the literal language of the law says that persons eligible to register to vote are also permitted to sign such petitions. The issue may arise again in this same case in a few weeks. The judge also declined to grant injunctive relief against the regulation that does not permit residents of different counties to sign the same petition sheet. Nor did he enjoin the law requiring all sheets to be notarized.
There was no need for him to rule on the regulation requiring that signers include the year in the “date” column on the petition, because the state’s witness, Jonathan Marks, Commissioner of Elections, testified that it will not be enforced.
The only states that still enforce a ban on out-of-state circulators for all kinds of petition are Alaska, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. States that ban some types of petition from being circulated by out-of-state circulators are Maine, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
On July 30, Theo Milonopoulos filed a federal lawsuit against California’s ban on write-in votes in the general election for Congress and partisan state office. Central district, 2:14cv-5973.
Milonopoulos filed as a declared write-in for U.S. House, 33rd district, for the June 2014 primary, but because his filing was a last-minute decision, he did not have time to campaign for write-in votes, and the Statement of Votes credits him with only one write-in at the primary. He is a registered independent. Here is his web page.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that if states have easy ballot access, they need not provide write-in space on any ballots. The case, Burdick v Takushi, was from Hawaii, which has never allowed write-in voting in any type of election, general, primary, or non-partisan. The decision, by Justice Byron White, said the ban is justified by Hawaii’s need for stability. This seemed to be an absurd conclusion, given that 45 states permitted write-in votes in general elections, and there was absolutely no evidence that those 45 states suffered from instability. Justice White wrote all of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 1972 through 1993 that upheld restrictive ballot access laws, and he always cited “stability” (without defining it) in his decisions.
Here is a newspaper story about the lawsuit. Thanks to Jack Dean for that link. UPDATE: here is a Washington Post story about the case.
The Massachusetts petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, for U.S. House and statewide office was July 29. The only unqualified parties that submitted petitions in Massachusetts for statewide office this year are the United Independent Party (which is running for Governor and Lieutenant Governor) and the Green Party (which is running for Secretary of the Commonwealth, Treasurer, and Auditor).
The Green slate submitted 4,700 signatures that have already been validated by town clerks, and another 3,000 signatures that are about to be checked. For the offices the Green Party is running for, 5,000 signatures are needed, so the drive is extremely likely to succeed. The United Independent Party, which needed 10,000 to run for Governor, earlier submitted more than 10,000 verified signatures.
A group that polls at least 3% for any statewide office then gains qualified party status, and will automatically on the 2016 ballot. Unfortunately, qualified parties also face very difficult petitions for their members to get on their own party’s primary ballot, but at least qualified parties are automatically on the ballot for president, and also their candidates for president have very easy access to their own party’s presidential primary ballot. Also, qualified parties are listed on the voter registration form. Voters can also register into unqualified parties, but an applicant must write-in the name of an unqualified party on the voter registration form to register into it.
Ballot Access News
July 1, 2014 – Volume 30, Number 2
| This issue was printed on lavender paper. |
Table of Contents
