Jon Barrie Sues New Mexico Secretary of State over Petition Validity

Posted on by August 13, 2012
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On August 13, Jon Barrie, the Independent American Party nominee for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, filed a lawsuit in New Mexico Supreme Court to obtain a place on the November ballot. The case is Barrie v Duran, no. 33755. Here is the brief. Even though the Independent American Party is a qualified party in New Mexico, and even though it nominated Barrie in a proper state convention, the Secretary of State says he can’t appear on the ballot, for two reasons: (1) he needed 6,028 valid signatures, and he fell short, even though he submitted 10,279; (2) the election code says a party may not nominate someone who wasn’t a registered member of that party early in the year.

UPDATE: the Court has asked the Secretary of State to respond by August 20, and has set a hearing for August 22, at 2 p.m.

The Secretary of State acknowledges that a U.S. District Court said the law mentioned in (2) above is unconstitutional, back in March 2011, in Woodruff v Herrera. But, she is still enforcing it unless another court tells her not to. As to the number of signatures, Barrie’s brief points out many flaws in the state’s signature-verification process. Some signatures were even rejected because the signer “lives outside the district”, which is obviously absurd, since U.S. Senate elections encompass the entire state.

Connecticut Republican Party Sues Secretary of State Over Order of Political Parties on the Ballot

Posted on by August 13, 2012
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Connecticut election law, sec. 9-249a, says “The names of the parties shall be arranged on ballots in the following order: (1) the party whose candidate for Governor polled the highest number of votes in the last-preceding election; (2) Other parties who had candidates for Governor in the last-preceding election, in descending order, according to the number of votes polled for each such candidate.” At the November 2, 2010 gubernatorial election, the Republican Party polled 560,874 votes; the Democratic Party polled 540,970 votes; the Working Families Party polled 26,308 votes; and the Independent Party polled 17,629 votes.

Notwithstanding the law, the Secretary of State, Denise Merrill, a Democrat, ruled last year that the Democratic Party should be listed first on 2012 and 2014 ballots. Because the Working Families Party nominee and the Democratic Party nominee were the same individual, Dan Malloy, the Secretary of State says the Democratic Party is the party whose candidate for Governor received the most votes. Malloy was elected, but he would have lost except that the Working Families Party nominated him, and thus he received votes under both the Democratic label and the Working Families label. Of course, by the Secretary of State’s logic, one could argue that the Working Families Party has an equal right to the top line.

In New York, which also uses fusion, the order of parties is also determined by the gubernatorial vote for each party, but New York determines the order by looking at the vote for each party, and not the cumulative vote for any particular candidate who has the nomination of more than one party.

On August 9, the Republican Party filed a lawsuit over the order of parties on the ballot. It is Republican Party of Connecticut v Merrill, superior court, Hartford, 027726. The case has a hearing on August 14, Tuesday. The Secretary of State has said publicly that the hearing date is very inconvenient, since August 14 is primary day in Connecticut. The Secretary of State says the Republican Party should have filed this case earlier.

New Mexico News Story Explains Why Jon Barrie Petition in U.S. Senate Race was Rejected

Posted on by August 13, 2012
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As reported earlier, the New Mexico Secretary of State earlier determined that Jon Barrie does not have enough valid signatures on his petition to be on the November ballot. He is the U.S. Senate nominee of the Independent American Party. If he gets on the ballot, he will be the first candidate on a general election ballot for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, other than the Democratic and Republican nominees, since 1996.

This story explains that the state checked his petition using an automated program that automatically rejects all signatures unless they are an exact match with that voter’s name on the voter registration rolls. Thus, it rejected a signer whose name was “Jean” on one document, but “Jeanne” on the other; and it rejected a signer whose name was “Chris” on one document and “Christopher” on the other document. The story does not say if Barrie will sue to get on the ballot. Thanks to Doug Carver for the link.