The Richmond Times-Dispatch has this op-ed, criticizing Virginia election law for not allowing any appeal once elections officials determine that a petition doesn’t have enough valid signatures.
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According to CBS News, the Republican convention will air a short film about Ron Paul on Tuesday night. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Montana election officials have determined that the independent presidential petition for Jill Stein only had 3,263 valid signatures. The law requires 5,000. Stein is the Green Party nominee, and if her petition had succeeded, she would have the label “Green” on the ballot next to her name. She had submitted approximately 6,800 signatures.
No Green Party presidential nominee has been on the ballot in Montana since 2004. The ballot-qualified parties in Montana are Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Americans Elect.
In a majority of states, no one yet knows which presidential candidates will be on the November ballot. This is partly because in some states, the petition deadline has not passed; in some states, election authorities are still checking petitions; and in some states there are ballot-qualified minor parties that have still not made final decisions as to whom to nominate for President.
States in which the petition, fee, or other paperwork deadline has not yet passed are: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wyoming. August 24 (today) is the deadline in Idaho and Virginia.
States in which the deadline has passed, but election officials are still checking presidential-procedure signatures, or have yet to decide on certain other procedures relevant to presidential ballot access, are: Alaska, Arkansas (revalidation), Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
States in which it is possible a ballot-qualified party may yet choose a presidential candidate, or replace a presidential candidate with another presidential candidate, are Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and South Carolina. The list in this paragraph does not include various state units of Americans Elect.
States in which courts will determine whether one or two particular candidates get on the ballot are Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.
As noted earlier, U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Story had dismissed the ballot access lawsuit filed by the Georgia Green Party and the Georgia Constitution Party on July 17, before the state had even answered the Complaint. Judge Story wrote “it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of the claim”, and his authority for that was that the Georgia ballot access laws held been upheld already in Jenness v Fortson, Cartwright v Barnes, and Coffield Kemp.
However, on July 24, the plaintiffs had asked him to reconsider, pointing out that all the precedents Judge Story relied on relate to congressional or state office elections. None of the precedents he cited refer to presidential elections. Both the U.S. Supreme Court, in Anderson v Celebrezze, and the 11th circuit, in Bergland v Harris, had ruled that Jenness v Fortson doesn’t control presidential election ballot access. Georgia is in the 11th circuit. It has now been a month since the plaintiffs asked for rehearing, and the judge has not acted on it. The state has not opposed the motion for reconsideration. In normal circumstances, the judge should have responded by now, especially as this is a case that affects the upcoming election. The case is Green Party of Georgia v Kemp, northern district, 1:12-cv-1822. The plaintiffs have presented evidence that the Georgia procedure is so restrictive, no statewide petition in Georgia has succeeded since 2000. There is no other state except Indiana for which that is a true statement.