The “Stop Watching Us” Coalition holds a large rally in Washington, D.C., on October 26. The coalition, which contains approximately 100 groups, includes the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, but no other political parties. See here for more information about the Coalition and the rally. UPDATE: see this story, and this one.
On October 25, the New Jersey Superior Court in Atlantic County upheld that county’s general election ballot format, a format that strongly discriminates against candidates other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. The two major parties each have their own party column. All other candidates are squeezed into a column headed by “Nomination by Petition” on the far right-hand side of the ballot. The case, Stein v McGettigan, will be appealed.
The plaintiff, Gary Stein, is an independent candidate for Assembly, 2nd district, in the November 5, 2013 election. He had filed the case on July 15, 2013, but for some reason it was not heard until it would have been too late for any relief anyway.
New Jersey has not had any ballot-qualified parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties ever since the definition of “political party” was amended in 1920. There is no other state with a historical record that restrictive. The law requires a group to have polled 10% of all the votes cast for lower house of the state legislature, for its nominees for state legislature. New Jersey is the only state that has ever had a vote test that excludes all the statewide offices.
See this story about the court hearing. As the article notes, not all counties in New Jersey use a discriminatory ballot format. State law permits each county to design its own general election ballot.
On October 25, Survey USA released a poll on the Kansas 2014 gubernatorial race. The results: Sam Brownback (incumbent Republican) 39%, Paul Davis (Democrat) 43%, “third party ticket” 12%, undecided 6%. See more details here, including breakdowns by race, sex, age, and party affiliation.
The only party on the Kansas ballot currently, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, is the Libertarian Party. The likely Democratic nominee, Paul Davis, is the minority leader in the Kansas House.
The Reform Party was removed from the Kansas ballot earlier this year by the Secretary of State, but the Secretary of State’s action violated precedent, and if the Reform Party were to file a lawsuit, it would have a good chance of winning. However, to date, as far as is known, the Reform Party has not fought the ruling. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
On October 25, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller expedited the lawsuit Hall v Bennett. A status conference will be held on Monday, October 28, at 9 a.m., in Montgomery. The issue is whether Alabama must relax its ballot access requirements for the upcoming December 17 special election, for the vacant U.S. House seat, First District. The plaintiff, James Hall, an independent candidate, submitted 2,835 signatures by the state-imposed September deadline. The law requires almost 6,000 valid signatures (3% of the last gubernatorial vote within the district).
The lawsuit is based on Eleventh Circuit precedent that when the normal petitioning time is not available, the state must either reduce the number of signatures, or extend the deadline somewhat. Normally, independent candidates in Alabama can take as long as they wish to complete the petition. In this case, of course, because the special election was a surprise event, the normal petitioning period was far shorter than in regularly-scheduled elections. The Republican Party still hasn’t chosen its nominee, but it will do so in a run-off primary on November 5.
Although the 2014 election is more than a year away, the Kearney Hub, the biggest daily newspaper in south-central Nebraska, has already editorialized that independent candidate Jim Jenkins will be good for the race for U.S. Senate. No incumbent is running. See the editorial here.
