On October 22, Suffolk University released a poll for the Ohio presidential race, which asks voters about all seven candidates listed on the ballot. The poll also asks what percentage of voters have heard of the various presidential candidates. See it here. Thanks to Mike for the link. There is so much publicity about Ohio being a crucial state, it is somewhat likely that the minor party vote in Ohio is depressed, relative to the vote in non-swing states.
On October 21, voters in Stuttgart, Germany elected a Green Party Mayor. See this story. Stuttgart is the sixth largest city in Germany, and has over 600,000 residents in the city limits, and millions in the metropolitan area.
The Metropolitican News Enterprise, a Los Angeles daily newspaper covering legal news for 110 years, has a story about the October 18 decision of a U.S. District Court in Justice Committee v Bowen. That is the decision that declared California’s deadline for groups trying to qualify as parties to be too early.
Illinois permits unqualified parties to circulate a petition with stand-in candidates, and because the petition deadline is so early (June 25 this year), the Green Party used a stand-in, Howie Hawkins, for vice-president. When the party started circulating its petition, it didn’t know who its vice-presidential nominee would be. Technically, it didn’t know for sure who its presidential candidate would be either, but the Illinois Green Party leaders assumed it would be Jill Stein.
Later, after the petition had succeeded, the party attempted to replace Hawkins with the actual vice-presidential nominee, Cheri Honkala. However, the paperwork for that was late, so Hawkins remains on the Illinois ballot for vice-president. This doesn’t really matter. In 1996, the Reform Party was unable to replace its vice-presidential stand-ins with the actual vice-presidential nominee, Pat Choate, in most states, because Choate was chosen so late. This is just another reminder that the true candidates in November are the candidates for presidential elector, and the information on the ballot about the names of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees is just information about the intentions of the elector candidates. This is an elementary point, based on Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, that the Michigan Secretary of State, and some federal judges in Michigan, do not grasp.
Puerto Rico has elections for important office only every four years, not every two years. The Puerto Rico Delegate to the U.S. House, and the Governor, have four-year terms, up in presidential election years.
The federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires that states (as well as Puerto Rico) not remove voters from the registration rolls unless or until they miss two elections. But Puerto Rico law says voters should be removed from the rolls if they miss voting in one election.
On October 17, a U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico ruled that the federal law has precedence over Puerto Rico law, and ordered that the 330,902 voters who had been removed from the registration rolls because they didn’t vote in 2008 be restored to the rolls. But late on October 18, the First Circuit reversed that, saying it isn’t practical to put the voters back on the rolls. They cannot now vote, because it is too late for them to re-register. The First Circuit vote was 2-1. The majority include Judges Kermit Lipez, a Clinton appointee; and Jeffrey Howard, a Bush Jr. appointee. The dissenter is Judge Juan Torruella. On October 19, one of the voters who had filed the case asked for a rehearing en banc. The case is Colon-Marrero v Conty-Perez, no. 12-2145 in the First Circuit. UPDATE: the U.S. government takes the position that the 1993 federal law on voter registration does not apply to Puerto Rico. See here. Thanks to Marty Lederman for that link.
Puerto Rico is voting in November not only for Governor, and for Delegate to the U.S. House, but on a ballot measure about the future status of the island. Voters are first asked if they favor the status quo or not. Then, they are asked which of these three options they prefer, should the status quo change: (1) independence; (2) statehood; (3) a recognition that Puerto Rico is a sovereign nation but one which would continue to be linked to the U.S. government in many ways. The intense interest in this ballot question makes the decision to exclude 330,902 voters especially contentious.
The First Circuit has decided two other Puerto Rico election law cases this month as well. On October 19 the First Circuit enjoined a Puerto Rico law that makes it illegal for labor unions to make independent expenditures about candidates. That case is Sindicato Puertorriqueno de Trabajadores v Fortuno, 12-2171. Also, on October 2, the First Circuit declined to offer any relief to a candidate for Governor who had been kept off his party’s primary ballot on the grounds that he had been charged with sexual harassment. The First Circuit said that is a case for the Puerto Rico courts. That case is Gonzalez-Cancel v Partido Nuevo Progressista, 12-1243.
