Hillary Clinton Advocates that Ex-Felons in All States Should be Permitted to Register to Vote

Posted on by May 20, 2015
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Hillary Clinton has said recently that all states should allow ex-felons to register to vote. Although most other leading Democratic Party office-holders probably agree with her, it is noteworthy that she has expressed this idea publicly. Generally major party presidential candidates don’t mention the issue. See this story. The story also shows which states would be most altered if ex-felons could register.

Hillary Clinton said on June 10, 2007, in Ames, Iowa, that she would consider debating some minor party or independent presidential candidates in the general election, if she were the Democratic nominee. She said, “Well, I would certainly be open to doing it. You know, there might be a couple of people that I would be a little bit reluctant about, but, you know, I am generally open to that. You know in New York we have a lot of parties; we don’t just have the Democratic and Republican Party, we have a lot of other parties. And, I believe in free and open debate. So, I will certainly consider it. I’m not going to make a 100% commitment, because it’s a hypothetical, and I try to stay away from hypotheticals. But I take your point and I think that it’s a very important one that we need to get as many people involves as possible, and that means having a lot of opinions out there that people can respond to.” This answer was obtained by Larry Reinsch, who had asked her the question.

U.S. District Court Says Georgia Presidential Ballot Access is Not Unconstitutional as a Matter of Law, but Leaves Door Open for More Evidence

Posted on by May 20, 2015
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On May 19, U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Story, a Clinton appointee, ruled that presidential ballot access in Georgia for minor party and independent presidential candidates is not unconstitutional as a matter of law, but he left the case alive to give the plaintiffs an opportunity to present evidence that the law is too strict. Green Party of Georgia and Constitution Party of Georgia v Kemp, n.d., 1:12cv-1822.

The 34-page decision says on page 29, “Mr. Nader’s failure to access the ballot in Georgia (in all of his presidential runs, 1996 through 2008), despite Georgia’s petition requirements being a lower percentage bar than in other states where Mr. Nader was similarly denied access, could indicate that the operation of Georgia’s election code as a whole serves to unconstitutionally bar access to third party and independent candidates. But the Court cannot reach that conclusion on the record presently before it.”

The decision does acknowledge that Georgia requires each petition sheet to be notarized, and that people who circulate the petition cannot serve as notaries. It also acknowledges that no presidential petition has succeeded in Georgia since Pat Buchanan’s petition in 2000. Additional evidence that can be entered in the record will show that 5,000 signatures is enough to keep any state’s ballot uncrowded. Historically, no state that ever required as many as 5,000 signatures ever had more than eight candidates on the ballot for any particular race, except that Ohio had nine for president in 1976. Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Williams v Rhodes said that eight candidates for a particular office does not equate to a confusingly crowded ballot.

In 2016, Georgia requires 51,912 signatures for a newly-qualifying party, and 49,336 for an independent presidential candidate. The formula is 1% of the number of registered voters as of the previous election. The numbers for a new party are based on the 2014 registration data, and the presidential petition is based on the 2012 registration data.

Ohio Republican Party Paid $300,000 in Legal Bills to Keep Libertarian Gubernatorial Nominee Off Libertarian Primary Ballot

Posted on by May 19, 2015
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This newspaper story reveals that the Ohio Republican Party paid the legal expenses to the law firm that represented the individual who challenged the 2014 Libertarian primary petition for Charlie Earl. Earl was the party’s candidate for Governor, but because at the time all Ohio qualified parties nominated by primary, Earl had to get his name on the Libertarian Party primary ballot. His petition needed 500 signatures. It was challenged on the basis that the petition circulators didn’t fill out the blank on the form that asked who was paying them.

Only now has the news surfaced that the legal bill for the challenger was $300,000, and the Ohio Republican Party paid the bill.

The Libertarian Party had no candidate for Governor on the November ballot, so it went off the ballot. The party was on for two other statewide offices, and they polled almost 5% of the vote, but the Ohio law only counted the gubernatorial vote for purposes of retaining ballot status. Earl couldn’t be a write-in candidate in the Ohio Libertarian primary because the filing deadline for write-in candidates had already passed when he was removed from the ballot. That also explains who no other Libertarian could run for Governor in the party’s primary as a write-in.