Thomas D. Elias, California Columnist, Celebrates the Absense of Minor Party Candidates on the California Ballot

Posted on by October 17, 2012
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Thomas D. Elias, a syndicated columnist in over 50 California daily newspapers, here celebrates the exclusion of minor party candidates from the November ballot. He is not factually correct when he says that there are no minor party candidates on the ballot for any congressional or state office. There are three Peace & Freedom Party candidates for the legislature on the November ballot. All three ran in races in which only one major party member filed to be on the primary ballot. Naturally, when only one major party member runs in a top-two primary, that leaves an opening for a minor party candidate to come in second. All three Peace & Freedom Party nominees happened to have been write-in candidates in the primary.

Elias seems to have no concept that general election season is one of the biggest and most important “public forums” in any free country. Locking out unpopular viewpoints from the general election campaign season represents a massive shrinkage of the free circulation of ideas.

Elias also reveals an unconscious contempt for ordinary voters. When a voter votes for a minor party nominee, that voter understands that he or she is not supporting the major party nominee whom that voter might prefer to the other major party nominee. Because Elias disagrees with that voter’s behavior, he wants to use the power of election law to interfere with voter freedom. This is a highly authoritarian action.

Change.org Petition is Circulating Asking Oklahoma To Improve Presidential Ballot Access

Posted on by October 17, 2012
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Ariana Eakle, an Oklahoma activist, has initiated a change.org on-line petition asking that Oklahoma ballot access laws be improved, so that Oklahoma voters in future have more choices for president in the general election than just the Democratic and Republican nominees. Anyone is encouraged to sign, regardless of residence. See here. UPDATE: here is a facebook page for the petition.

Oklahoma voters have now endured three presidential elections in a row with no ability to vote for president unless they vote for either of the two major party nominees. No other state has a record that bad, since the period 1956 through 1964. And even in the period 1956-1964, the only other states that were equally bad, to the extent of even denying write-in space on the ballot, were Nevada, Ohio, and South Dakota. The laws of all three states are far better now than they were in 1956-1964, but the Oklahoma laws are much worse now than they were then.

October 22 Hearing Set on Whether Six Opponents of California’s Top Two Primary Must Pay Almost $250,000

Posted on by October 17, 2012
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On October 22, a San Francisco Superior Court will hold a hearing on whether six individuals, including me, must pay almost $250,000 to the attorneys who intervened in the lawsuit Field v Bowen. Field v Bowen is a lawsuit filed in state court in 2010 that charged that two particular details of California’s new top-two primary law are unconstitutional. In 2011 the lawsuit lost. On August 1, 2012, a Superior Court Judge ruled that the six plaintiffs must pay attorneys fees to the groups that intervened in the case to defend the law. On September 17 that judge recused himself from any further proceedings on the attorneys fee matter, so a new judge will re-consider the matter on Monday, October 22.

Anyone who is interested in this matter is urged to attend the hearing, which is at 400 McAllister, at the corner of McAllister and Polk, just north of San Francisco City Hall. The hearing is at 9:30 a.m., room 302. Attendees must past through a metal detector and sometimes that is time-consuming, so it is better to arrive somewhat before 9:30 a.m.

Here is an article by Steve Hill in the BeyondChron of October 17. BeyondChron is an on-line San Francisco newspaper that has existed since 2004.

Political Scientist Seth Masket Studies California Top-Two 2012 Primary

Posted on by October 17, 2012
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Seth Masket, a professor of Political Science at the University of Denver, delivered this paper for presentation at a recent conference in Ventura, California, at the California State University Channel Islands. The paper concludes, “The district-level results of the 2012 primary in California suggest a legislature that will not be dramaticallly different from those that preceded it.” This is because “If California election law now says that primaries are not the way parties determine nominees, then parties will find some other way to determine nominees.” The paper documents this conclusion.

Professor Masket made a factual error on page four when he said, under the old California system in effect 2001-2010, “unaffiliated voters could register with a party on the day of the (primary) election to participate in that contest.” Actually, under the system in effect for congressional and state office primaries 2001-2010, every independent voter who participated in the primary (either by mail or at the polls) was asked if he or she wished to choose a Republican primary ballot or a Democratic primary ballot. The Secretary of State’s 2010 Poll Worker Training Standards make this clear and can be seen here. The instructions prepared by each county election office instruct poll workers to show each independent voter at the polls a card that says, “VOTERS WHO ARE NOT REGISTERED WITH A PARTY. YOU MAY REQUEST A DEMOCRATIC PARTY BALLOT WITH NONPARTISAN CONTESTS AND MEASURES OR A REPUBLICAN PRIMARY BALLOT WITH NONPARTISAN CONTESTS AND MEASURES.” When an independent asked for a major party primary ballot, his or her voter registration continued to be “independent.”

It is not too surprising that Professor Masket got this wrong. Most organizations that support the top-two system, including IndependentVoting, IndependentVoice, and the California Independent Voters Network, constantly repeat the misinformation that the old California system forced independents to affirmatively ask for a party primary ballot, or even worse, they deny that independent voters could participate at all. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link to the Masket paper.