The Nevada Green Party filed a lawsuit earlier this year, alleging that the April petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties is too early. Recently, the party and the state agreed to postpone proceedings in the case until June 2015. Both sides hope the 2015 legislature will ease the deadline.
Most Alaska votes have now been counted. In this month’s election, Pam Goode, Constitution Party nominee for State House, district 9, polled 26.74% of the vote. She lost to Republican nominee Jim Colver, who got 58.16%. But she easily did better than the Democratic nominee, Mabel Wimmer, who only got 14.40%. Here is a link to the Alaska Division of Elections web page, showing election results.
District nine includes Glennallen, Delta Junction, and Palmer, communities north of Anchorage but south of Fairbanks.
Among the most irrational ballot access laws are the laws of Arizona, Florida, Maryland, New Mexico, and Texas, which require independent presidential candidates to submit far more signatures than those states require for newly-qualifying parties.
The consistent excuse for severe ballot access laws is that without them, the ballot would be too crowded. But when a state requires far more signatures for a single independent candidate, who will only occupy one line on a ballot, than for a entire new party (which could put a nominee on the ballot for all the partisan offices, thus impacting the ballot much more), the law isn’t even rational.
Florida does not require a newly-qualifying party to submit any signatures at all, but for 2016 it requires an independent presidential candidate to submit 119,316 signatures. Only independent presidential candidates have a mandatory petition in Florida; independent candidates for other office need no petition. No one has yet challenged Florida’s discriminatory ballot access for independent presidential candidates. Instead, independent presidential candidates have simply formed a party to avoid the problem. For instance, Ralph Nader in 2008 helped create the Ecology Party, a party that only existed in Florida. That party then nominated Nader for president.
Arizona for 2016 requires 20,049 valid signatures for a newly-qualifying party, but will require approximately 36,000 or more signatures for an independent candidate for president and any other statewide office. The exact requirement can’t be known until early 2016, but is 3% of the number of registered voters who are not registered in a qualified political party. No independent candidate has ever sued Arizona over this law.
Maryland for 2016 requires a newly-qualifying party to submit 10,000 signatures, but an independent presidential candidate, and any other statewide independent, needs approximately 38,000 signatures. The exact requirement won’t be known until early in 2016, but will be 1% of the number of registered voters.
Texas in 2016 requires a newly-qualifying party to submit 47,086 signatures, but a presidential independent needs 79,939 signatures.
Several organizations exist to promote to interests of independent voters and, to some extent, the interests of independent candidates. Some of these organizations have substantial networks of supporters and considerable financial resources. Anyone who reads this blog post, and who is associated with such organizations, should consider either (1) bringing these unconstitutional laws to the attention of state legislators; (2) finding independent candidate-plaintiffs who want to run in 2016 who will bring lawsuits. Already, a potential independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland is considering bring a lawsuit, although an attorney must still be found.
According to this story, a New York State Board of Elections Commissioner criticized Nassau County elections officials for allowing poll workers in some precincts to see voted ballots before they had been cast. Thanks to Konstantin Doren for the link.
The Ninth Circuit will hear Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 13-16254, on January 29, 2015. This is the case over Arizona voter registration forms. A few years ago the legislature passed a law saying the two largest parties should be listed with their own checkbox on the voter registration form. But if a voter wants to register into any other party, qualified or not, the voter must write that choice in on a blank line that is only nine-tenths of one inch long.
The U.S. District Court had ruled that this law is not discriminatory and imposes only a “slight” burden on the other ballot-qualified parties. This conclusion ignores the fact that Arizona parties can remain ballot-qualified if they keep their registration up to two-thirds of 1%, which is about 20,000 members. Obviously parties will have more registered members if they are listed on the voter registration form with their own checkbox. The Green Party has never met the registration threshold so it must do a difficult petition drive every four years. The Libertarian and Green Parties are co-plaintiffs.
