On August 30, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood, a Clinton appointee, struck down a Dearborn, Michigan city ordinance that required a group to have insurance if it wished to leaflet on public property and to have public speakers in that area. Stand Up America Now v City of Dearborn, eastern district, 12-11471. Here is the 12-page opinion. The opinion would be equally applicable to petitioning. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the news.
Kansas requires voter registration applicants to supply a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization certificate when they register to vote. This lengthy Kansas City Star explains how that law is preventing some individuals from registering to vote. The Kansas law even applies to the federal Voter Registration form, and a U.S. District Court will eventually rule on whether Kansas can force the federal government to let it enforce the Kansas law. Thanks to HowAppealing for the link.
Colorado is holding a special State Senate election on September 10, in the Eleventh District in El Paso County. The special election is also a recall election. The ballot asks voters if they wish to recall incumbent State Senator John Morse, a Democrat. If he is recalled, then the ballot asks who should replace him. However, the only name on that part of the ballot is Republican candidate Bernie Herpin.
The Libertarian Party petitioned for Jan Brooks, but on August 27, her petition was ruled invalid. She needed 575 valid signatures and she was told that she only had 408 valid signatures. She had submitted 834. She considered suing, but the election is September 10 and there didn’t seem to be enough time. She is running a write-in campaign and her write-ins will be tallied.
New Delaware registration data shows that both the Green Party and the Working Families Party are in danger of being removed from the 2014 ballot, unless they increase their registration totals. Delaware defines a qualified party as one that has registration membership of at least one-tenth of 1%. Both the Green Party and the Working Families met this test in 2012, but no longer meet it, although the Green Party is only 5 registrants short.
The August 13, 2013 tally shows these totals: Democratic 302,290 (47.70%); Republican 179,767 (28.37%), independent voters 143,465 (22.64%), Independent Party 3,297 (.52%), Libertarian 981 (.15%), Green 629 (.10%), Working Families 566 (.09%), various other parties that are not ballot-qualified 2,633 (.42%). The total of 633,628 voters means that parties need at least 634 members to remain qualified.
The November 2013 tally percentages were: Democratic 47.50%, Republican 28.74%, independent voters 22.49%, Independent Party .49%, Libertarian .14%, Green .10%, Working Families .10%, unqualified parties .44%. Thanks to Bob Johnston for the new registration data.
A record-breaking fourteen individuals have petitioned to be on the November 2013 ballot for Mayor of New York City as independents, or as the nominees of unqualified parties. This is in addition to the five individuals who will be nominated by the qualified parties in the September 10 primary. However, not all of the fourteen independent body petitions have as many as 3,750 signatures, so some of the independent candidates will not appear on the ballot. The New York city Board of Elections has a hearing at 1:30 p.m. on September 3 to see which petitions are defective on their face.
The fourteen independent petitions are for:
1. Randy Credico, Tax Wall Street
2. Dan Fein, Socialist Workers
3. Michael Sanchez, Libertarian
4. Carl Person, Reform
5. John Catsimatidis, Liberal (he also submitted a second petition with the ballot label Jobs, Jobs)
6. Mike Dilger, Flourish Every Person
7. Jimmy McMillan, Rent is 2 Damn High
8. Joseph Lhota, Education
9. George McDonald, Common Sense
10. William Melisky, Voice of the People
11. Joseph Melaragno, Affordable Tomorrow
12. Jack Hidari, Jobs & Education
13. Mike Greys, Freedom
14. Walter Iwuachiw, WWTC
