On September 21, a U.S. District Court in Colorado dismissed the case Citizen Center v Gessler, 1:12-cv-370. The judge ruled that nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires a secret ballot, so even if the presence of the bar codes does make it possible for someone to learn how someone else voted, that is not a violation of the U.S. Constitution. See this story.
On September 14, Congressman John Sarbanes (D-Md.) introduced HR 6426, which provides public funding for candidates for Congress. Candidates for U.S. House would qualify by raising contributions privately from at least 2,000 individuals, at least half of whom must live in the district. The total would need to be at least $50,000 in private contributions. Here is the text of the bill.
On September 21, a Reason-Rupe Poll for the presidential race was released. When respondents are asked to choose between President Obama and Mitt Romney, the results are: Obama 48%, Romney 43%, 2% volunteered someone else, 1% said they would not vote, and 6% didn’t know or refused to answer. When the respondents are asked to choose among Obama, Romney, and Gary Johnson, the results are: Obama 49%, Romney 40%, Johnson 6%, someone else 1%, would not vote under 1%, don’t know or refused 4%.
It is unfortunate that pollsters don’t list more candidates. The recent Gallup Poll, listing five candidates, should be a model.
The Reason-Rupe Poll also shows that 65% of respondents have never heard of Gary Johnson. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
According to this story, Virginia’s Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, says that Virgil Goode, Constitution Party presidential nominee, is properly on the ballot. He has finished investigating the Goode petition.
On September 19, the North Dakota Supreme Court refused to put this year’s medical marijuana initiative on the ballot. The Court said it would explain its reasoning later. The case is Zaiser v Jaeger, 20120346.
This year, North Dakota statewide initiatives needed 13,452 valid signatures. Proponents submitted over 20,000 signatures, but the Secretary of State determined that many of the signatures were forged, so he invalidated the measure without determining exactly how many signatures are valid and how many are forged. Proponents of the initiative asked the Court to declare that an initiative can’t be invalidated without a determination of how many signatures are valid, but they did not prevail. When the Court issues its opinion, it is possible it will not decide the issue and will perhaps merely say that the lawsuit had been filed too late. Some ballots had already been printed.
Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, and California are the only states that still ban out-of-state circulators for statewide initiatives, and the Alaska, California and Montana restrictions cannot be enforced because the Ninth Circuit already ruled that out-of-state circulators cannot be banned. The District of Columbia also bans them. Probably if North Dakota did not ban out-of-state circulators, there would have been no petition fraud. Proponents of the North Dakota medical marijuana initiative hired eight members of the University of North Dakota football team, and they have been charged with forgery. If proponents had been able to hire out-of-state circulators, chances are high they would have hired honest, talented professionals and the initiative would now be on the ballot.
