Free & Equal’s presidential debate, set for October 23 at the University Club of Chicago, will include four presidential candidates: Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Virgil Goode, and Rocky Anderson. They are the only presidential candidates who have ever polled as much as 1% in any national neutral poll.
Cathy Stewart, Nancy Hanks, and Sarah Lyons are pictured here, celebrating their recent election or re-election to posts in the Independence Party of New York. Each is the county chair of her respective county. They are also active in IndependentVoting, which teaches that political parties are bad for society. Thanks to Michael Drucker for the link.
The leaders of IndependentVoting acknowledge the irony that they are active in reducing the role of political parties in elections, while at the same time being active in a political party themselves. They say their activism in the Independence Party is “self-defense” in a partisan system.
Although IndependentVoting teaches that partisan election systems produce bad government, they have also been generally supportive of New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the nation’s highest-ranked elected official who is a registered independent. Bloomberg has won the last three Mayoral elections. This creates another irony, because although IndependentVoting teaches that partisan elections are undesirable, they acknowledge that recent New York City Mayoral elections have produced good Mayors.
Although U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman and Bernie Sanders were elected as independent candidates, neither is a registered independent. Lieberman is a registered Democrat and Sanders lives in a state that doesn’t have registration by party. Assuming Angus King is elected to the U.S. Senate later this year, he will supercede Mayor Bloomberg as the nation’s highest-ranked elected official who is registered “independent.”
On September 27, New York State Senator Roy McDonald said that he will not ask voters to re-elect him in November, even though he is on the November ballot as the Independence Party nominee. He had been defeated in the Republican primary held on September 13. Governor Andrew Cuomo had told McDonald that if McDonald wanted to campaign to keep his seat as the Independence Party nominee, then the Governor would endorse him, campaign for him, and help him raise money. See this story about Cuomo’s offer, which the Senator has now declined.
McDonald lost the Republican primary because he had voted in favor of same-sex marriage. The Governor appreciated that vote and was thus willing to supercede his normal tendency to support Democratic nominees for state legislative races.
California recently made it possible for unregistered voters to register to vote on-line. If the individual already has a California Drivers License or state ID card, the entire process can be handled via the internet. An individual needs to add the state ID number, and the last four digits of the Social Security Number, and the date of birth. See this story. Certain other states have already been allowing on-line voter registration. The new method for voter registration may make it easier for minor parties to retain, or obtain, their place on the ballot. Parties need registration of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote to be ballot-qualified.
Both of the Michigan Libertarian Party ballot access cases are still actively trying to win a court ruling that will make it possible for voters to vote “Libertarian” for President without the need to cast a write-in vote.
In the original case, to get Governor Gary Johnson on the ballot, the party filed this brief on September 26 in the Sixth Circuit. That case is Libertarian Party of Michigan v Ruth Johnson, 12-2153. This brief submits evidence that even though Michigan said it had to print all its ballots earlier in the month, in reality it only had to print its overseas absentee ballots.
In the case that was filed earlier this month, Gelineau v Ruth Johnson, to get Gary Johnson of Austin, Texas, on the November ballot as the Libertarian presidential nominee, the party filed an amended complaint in U.S. District Court on September 26, arguing that there is no valid reason why the state cannot let Libertarian straight-ticket voters have their straight-ticket votes counted for the Libertarian Party slate of electors. Also the brief points out that the state could have printed ballots that list Vice-Presidential nominee James Gray on the ballot; the state has never offered one reason why his name was not certified for the ballot. He was the original party nominee, certified in June, and the party never attempted to replace him. UPDATE: the U.S. District Court in this case has just instructed the Secretary of State to respond to the new filing by Monday, October 1, at 10 a.m.
