President Obama’s Re-Election Committee, and Ohio Democratic Party, Sue Ohio over Elimination of Early Voting on The Three Days Before the Election

Posted on by July 17, 2012
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On July 17, President Obama’s re-election campaign, and the Ohio Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Committee filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio. The lawsuit charges that Ohio’s elimination of early voting on November 3-5 (the weekend and Monday before election day) violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Ohio permitted early voting on the three days before the 2008 presidential election, but the law was changed since then. Here is the complaint. The case is Obama for America v Husted, 2:12-cv-636. It was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Peter C. Economus, a Clinton appointee.

The case will point out all the problems in Ohio in November 2004, when at some precincts, there were so few voting booths, and so many voters, that some voters had to wait in line for more than four hours. Other Ohio precincts with fewer voters had many more voting booths, and voters in those precincts had to wait only a brief time in order to vote. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Hearing Set for Injunctive Relief in Justice Party Lawsuit over Vermont Petition Procedures

Posted on by July 17, 2012
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On July 31, at 9 a.m., a Vermont Superior Court in Montpelier will hear Anderson v State of Vermont, 480-6-12. This is the case filed by the Justice Party over Vermont’s awkward procedures for submitting petitions for independent and minor party candidates. For those kind of petitions, Vermont requires the petitioning groups to turn in signatures to each town clerk, then collect the signatures and physically take them to the Secretary of State’s office. Sometimes the town clerks don’t check the petitions very quickly. Rocky Anderson submitted the needed 1,000 valid signatures by the deadline but he is still not on the ballot because the town clerks took too long to check the signatures.

By contrast, primary candidates running for statewide office can submit their petitions directly to the Secretary of State. Federal law requires all state election offices to maintain a statewide list of the registered voters.

Delaware Independent Party Nominates Alex Pires for U.S. Senate, Declines to Nominate Anyone for President

Posted on by July 17, 2012
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On Sunday, July 15, the ballot-qualified Independent Party of Delaware held its state convention in Bridgeville. It nominated Alex Pires for U.S. Senate, but declined to nominate anyone for President. Rocky Anderson had sought the presidential nomination. In 2008, the Independent Party had nominated Ralph Nader for President.

Pires, the U.S. Senate nominee, had already collected 9,200 signatures to be an independent candidate. He is well-known and has an energetic campaign. However, even though the legal requirement is 6,070 signatures, Pires felt Delaware’s signature verification process is poorly administered and that he could not be certain his petition would be approved. With the Independent Party nomination, he is safely on the November ballot.

Arizona Opponents of “Top-Two Open Primary” Initiative File Lawsuit, Charging that Measure Encompasses More than a Single Subject

Posted on by July 16, 2012
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On July 16, opponents of Arizona’s top-two open primary initiative filed a lawsuit in state court, charging that the measure violates the Arizona Constitution. The Arizona Constitution, like the state constitution of all states that permit statewide initiatives, requires that initiatives be limited to a single subject. See this story.

UPDATE: here is the complaint. The only group political plaintiffs are the committee formed to oppose the measure, and the Arizona League of Women Voters. The individual voter plaintiffs include Barry Hess, who has run for Governor of Arizona as a Libertarian. The Complaint charges that the measure violates the single-subject rule, and it also charges that the description of the initiative on the petitions is misleading.

On the single subject issue, the initiative abolishes elections for party officers. None of the three other states that have top-two systems (Louisiana, Washington, and California) abolished elections for party office when they started using top-two systems. There seems to be no necessary connection between a top-two system and eliminating elections for party office.

The top-two open primary initiative does not mesh with the existing public funding law in Arizona. The initiative does not attempt to alter the public funding law, but the public funding law assumes that the state has party nominations, and sets out different rules for public funding depending on whether a candidate is running in a district in which one particular party is strongly dominant, versus other types of districts. If the top-two law passes, it would be difficult to reconcile the public funding rules with the top-two system.