On October 9, the Tennessee Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit, asking to be placed on the ballot in the December 2013 special legislative election in Memphis. The existing law on how a party gets on the ballot was held unconstitutional earlier this year, and the state is appealing. The new lawsuit is Tomasik v Goins, middle district, 3:13cv-1118.
The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has this editorial, cricitizing the Commonwealth Court decision of last week that keeps Nevin Mindlin, independent for Mayor of Harrisburg, off the ballot.
Politico announced a new Virginia gubernatorial poll on October 7. The results: Democrat Terry McAuliffe 44%, Republican Ken Cuccinelli 35%, Libertarian Rob Sarvis 12%, undecided 8%. This poll makes it very likely that the October 24 debate will include all three ballot-listed candidates. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
On October 7, Arizona Attorney General Thomas C. Horne, a Republican, ruled that voters who registered to vote with the federal voter registration form are not entitled to vote in state or local elections. Furthermore, they are not entitled to sign ballot measure petitions, nor candidate petitions (unless the candidates are running for Congress or President). The Opinion does not say if such voters can sign a petition to recognize a new party.
The obvious flaw with the Opinion is that there is no Arizona election law that says there should be two separate lists of registered voters, one entitled to vote in all elections, and another to vote only in federal elections. If the Attorney General had ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit the legislature from establishing two separate lists, that Opinion might stand (although courts have invalidated such dual lists in other states, based on state constitutional guarantees that elections be “free and equal”). But it seems unlikely that courts would agree that the Attorney General himself, by this opinion, can now tell elections officials to establish two separate lists of registered voters.
The federal form has existed for twenty years.
The ACLU in many states has been a strong proponent of tolerant ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates. The ACLU litigates on behalf of ballot access, and to a somewhat lesser extent lobbies for better ballot access. However, the ACLU has not handled any minor party or independent ballot access constitutional lawsuits in Ohio during the last 30 years, nor has it been active lobbying in the Ohio legislature on this issue in the past few decades.
However, the Ohio ACLU will send a representative to the October 8 hearing in the State Senate Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, when that committee again hears SB 193. The ACLU representative is expected to testify that changing the ballot access requirements at this point in the 2014 petitioning cycle violates fairness and due process. Thanks to Kevin Knedler for this news.
