Andrew Straw, an Indiana Green Party activist, has this op-ed in the South Bend Tribune, criticizing Indiana’s ballot access laws. Straw seems to be the most energetic activist against Indiana’s ballot access laws in many decades. Indiana is one of only two states in which no statewide minor party or independent petition has succeeded in over ten years (the other such state is Georgia).
On August 24, a federal lawsuit was filed in Ohio over a recent directive of the Secretary of State that eliminated the weekend before the November election as a time when voters may vote. The case is Fair Elections Ohio v Husted, 12-cv-763, southern district. See this story.
A lawsuit filed a few weeks ago challenged Ohio practices that permitted some counties to have more early voting days and hours than other counties. The Secretary of State responded to that lawsuit by imposing uniform days and hours for early voting for all counties. But, when he did that, he eliminated the weekend before the election. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
According to this story, a Maine PAC linked to the Republican Party is running ads in Maine, boosting the U.S. Senate candidacy of Cynthia Dill. Dill is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, but she is running a distant third behind Angus King (the leading independent candidate) and the Republican nominee. Presumably Republicans hope to persuade King voters to instead support Dill.
The Treasurer for the PAC, which is called Maine Freedom, also serves as the General Counsel to the Republican Governors Association.
On August 24, backers of the initiative in Arizona for a top-two open primary filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the petition does have enough valid signatures. See this story. UPDATE: opponents of the initiative have also filed a lawsuit, alleging that many of the signatures accepted by elections officials should be rejected, because they were collected by ex-felons. See this story.
Maryland is one of the few states that requires a statewide independent candidate to submit more signatures than are needed for an entire new party. Maryland requires 10,000 signatures for a new party but a petition of 1% of the number of registered voters for a statewide independent candidate. This year statewide independents in Maryland need 34,713 signatures.
On June 25, S. Rob Sobhani filed approximately 77,000 signatures in order to be on the ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. He is an expert on the Middle East and has written two books. His web page is robsobhani.com. That is not a campaign web page, just a personal web page with information about him. Thanks to Bob Johnston for this news.
The State Board of Elections has had to work very hard on validating this petition. The validation process is still not complete. If the petition is valid, Sobhani will be the first statewide independent candidate to qualify since Ross Perot in 1992.
