Michigan Republican Party Intervenes in Federal Court to Try to Keep Gary Johnson Off the Ballot

Posted on by September 4, 2012
8

On September 4, only two days before the U.S. District Court hearing in Libertarian Party of Michigan v Ruth Johnson, the Republican Party of Michigan applied to the Court to intervene in the lawsuit. Here is the Republican Party’s brief. The party does not even acknowledge two of the Libertarian Party’s strongest points: (1) the “sore loser” law has not been amended since before 1980, yet the law was construed not to cover presidential primaries in 1980 and John Anderson was allowed to be on the November ballot; (2) the true candidates in a presidential election are the presidential elector candidates, and they aren’t sore losers.

It is odd that the Michigan Republican Party feels it should intervene in the lawsuit. Both the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are Republicans. Generally when a group intervenes in a lawsuit, it says it is doing that because it doesn’t believe the parties already in the case are capable of defending the challenged law.

Virginia State Board of Elections Puts All Three Petitioning Presidential Candidates on Ballot, but Republicans May Sue to Try to Remove Gary Johnson and/or Virgil Goode

Posted on by September 4, 2012
8

On September 4, the Virginia State Board of Elections held three hours of hearings over the November ballot. The Board then placed all three petitioning presidential candidates on the ballot. They are Virgil Goode, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. Republican Party attorneys appeared at the hearing to argue that the Goode and Johnson petitions are invalid. Virgil Goode himself testified about the Constitution Party’s petition, because the Republican Party challenged some of the petition sheets that Goode himself had circulated.

It is possible that a lawsuit will be filed against the State Board of Elections by various Republican voters and activists, to remove either or both Johnson and Goode. UPDATE: here is a lengthy story from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Wyoming Secretary of State Expects to Finish Checking Jill Stein Petition by Close of Business, Tuesday, September 4

Posted on by September 4, 2012
3

The Wyoming Secretary of State expects to be finished checking Jill Stein’s independent presidential petition by the end of the day, Tuesday, September 4. If the petition succeeds, that will be the first time the Green Party presidential nominee has ever appeared on the Wyoming ballot. Ralph Nader did not qualify in 2000 in Wyoming.

Two Independent Candidates for U.S. House in Kentucky Don’t Live in Kentucky

Posted on by September 4, 2012
1

Kentucky has four independent candidates for U.S. House this year. That is the largest number of independent U.S. House candidates who have ever appeared on government-printed ballots in Kentucky, ever since the state started using government-printed ballots in 1892. This year there is an independent candidate on the ballot in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th districts. Kentucky has six districts.

Two of the independent candidates do not live in Kentucky. David Lewis, running in the 4th district, lives in Ohio and ran in the Republican primary in 2012 against the Speaker of the House, John Boehner. Andrew Beacham, running in the 2nd district, lives in Indiana. Here is an article about them. They are both supporters of Randall Terry. The U.S. Constitution, Article One, has no residency requirement for anyone to run for Congress except that the candidate live in the state on election day.

No independent candidate had been elected to the Kentucky legislature since 1923, but then in 2006 an independent, Bob Leeper, was elected to the State Senate, and he was re-elected as an independent in 2010. Independent candidates in Kentucky are injured by the state’s use of a party-column device, but Leeper was able to overcome that problem.

Kentucky only has one minor party candidate on the ballot for U.S. House this year, Libertarian Craig R. Astor in the 2nd district.

Randall Terry, Independent Presidential Candidate, is Also on the Ballot as an Independent Candidate for U.S. House in Florida

Posted on by September 3, 2012
3

Randall Terry, anti-legal abortion activist, is running as an independent candidate for President. He is already on the ballot in his home state, West Virginia, and is petitioning in Kentucky and Nebraska.

He is also on the ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. House in Florida’s 20th district. He is the only ballot-listed opponent to Democratic incumbent Alcee Hastings. The U.S. Constitution has no residency requirement for candidates for Congress, other than that they live in the state they hope to represent on election day.

Earlier this year, Terry ran in Democratic presidential primaries in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma. He was a Right to Life Party nominee for U.S. House in New York in 1998, polling 6.94% in a race with both a Democrat and a Republican also running. Also, Terry ran for Florida State Senate in the Republican primary in 2006.

This year, two independent candidates for Congress in Kentucky, Andrew Beacham in the 2nd district and David Lewis in the 4th district, are supporters of Terry.

Here is a link to the wiki page about Terry.