The July 3 Salt Lake Tribune has this story, which mentions that Utah State Representative John Dougall says he favors requiring parties to pay for their own nomination process. Dougall has been in the legislature since 2002 and is a Republican from American Fork. Thanks to Election Updates for the link.
The July 3 Arizona Republic has this story about the fate of public funding in Arizona, after part of the program was declared unconstitutional last week.
In Illinois, it is common for many small cities to have partisan elections, which are contested only by local political parties. Lyons, Illinois, in Cook County, has partisan elections for its own officers in odd year. At the April 2011 election, the contest was between the United Citizens Party and the Most Valuable Party. The press commonly refers to these two parties by their acronyms, UCP and MVP.
The MVP candidates’ petition in this year’s election was challenged, because the MVP candidates for Village Trustee filled out a declaration of candidacy on a form that was intended to be used only by independent candidates. The UCP challenged the ballot status of the MVP candidates, and the local election board removed the MVP candidates from the ballot. A local court upheld that decision. However, the Illinois State Appeals Court reversed the decision, and put the MVP candidates on the ballot. The decision is Lyons MVP Party v Electoral Board, 945 NE 2d 1175.
One of the three MVP candidates for Village Trustee, Patricia Krueger, then won the election, something she probably could not have done if the appeals court had not restored her to the ballot. This is an example of how overly-stringent ballot access laws can actually prevent the voters from electing the person they wish to elect.
On July 1, Louisiana Goveror Bobby Jindal vetoed HB 533, an omnibus election law bill, entirely because one small part of the bill lets independent candidates have “independent” as their ballot label. See this story, which contains the Governor’s veto letters (scroll down to find HB 533).
The veto message displays surprising ignorance. Governor Jindal says there is another already-existing section of the election law that bans any party from calling itself the Independent Party. This is true. However, the Governor doesn’t seem to understand that the U.S. Constitution requires all states to provide ballot access procedures for independent candidates, separately and distinct from members of political parties. See Storer v Brown, 415 US 724, at page 745-746. The Court said, “Must the independent candidate necessarily choose the political party route if he wants to appear on the ballot in the general election? We think not.” The fact that the state doesn’t want any political party to call itself “Independent Party” has nothing to do with ballot labels for independent candidates. Furthermore, the label “independent” is so generic and so essential that the State Supreme Courts of Massachusetts and Minnesota have each ruled that the state may not ban that label for independent candidates.
Even more surprisingly, Louisiana has always permitted independent presidential candidate to use a ballot label of “independent.” For example, in November 2008, Ralph Nader appeared on the Louisiana ballot with the label “independent.” Governor Jindal obviously doesn’t know this.
It is unfortunate that the bill was vetoed, because the bill contains another common-sense reform. It provides that the names of presidential elector candidates should no longer be printed on the ballot. The Louisiana November 2008 ballot includes the names of 81 candidates for presidential elector. That occupied lots of space on the ballot and didn’t contribute much useful information. Thanks to Randall Hayes for the link.
Ballot Access News
June 1, 2011 – Volume 27, Number 1
| This issue was originally printed on white paper. |
Table of Contents
The Populist Party ran candidates in the United States from 1984 through 1994, on a platform that suggested that whites are discriminated against by many government policies. The presidential nominees of the Populist Party were Bob Richards in 1984, David Duke in 1988, and Bo Gritz in 1992. The party’s newspaper was The Nationalist Times, published originally in Pennsylvania. The party ceased to exist but the newspaper continued, as a monthly. It is now published in Nevada.
On July 1, American Third Position, a new party with somewhat similar views to the Populist Party, announced that The Nationalist Times is the party’s official organ. Don Wassall has been the editor ever since the paper was established.