According to this story, the Oregon Libertarian Party expects to nominate candidates for public office this year by privately-financed mail balloting. The party may have got this idea from the Independent Party, another ballot-qualified Oregon minor party that has been nominating that way for several years now.
Since 1908, Canada has had a law prohibiting non-residents of Canada from “inducing” Canadian voters to vote for or against a candidate, during the Canadian campaign season. See this interesting analysis of the law on CBC News, which wonders if particular U.S. citizens (including Michael Moore) may have broken that law in recent years. “CBC” stands for “Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.”
Because 2012 is the first election year following redistricting, the number of signatures needed for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House in Illinois and Pennsylvania is significantly lower than in normal years.
In Illinois, in a normal year, the petition is 5% of the last vote cast. That means the typical U.S. House district following a presidential year needs, on the average, 14,000 signatures; and following a midterm year, 10,000. But Illinois law says in the year after redistricting, the requirement is exactly 5,000 signatures.
In Pennsylvania, in a normal year, the U.S. House petition is 2% of the winning candidate’s vote in the last election. But in years after redistricting, the new districts didn’t exist in the last election. So, instead, the state uses a different base for the percentage. Instead of 2% of the winner for Congress two years previously, it calculates what the winner of the preceding odd-year judicial election received in the new district. This is a lot of work for election officials. It also means that because the turnout is so much lower in the odd-year election years, the calculation produces a lower number. In 2012, in the average U.S. House district in Pennsylvania, an independent, or the nominee of an unqualified party, needs 1,144 signatures. By contrast, in 2010 the requirement in the average district was 3,842 signatures. Thanks to John Murphy for this news. UPDATE: it turns out that another clause in the Pennsylvania election law requires minor party and independent candidate requirements to never be less than what Democrats and Republicans need to get on the primary ballot. That number for major party members is 1,000 signatures to run for U.S. House, so this year minor party and independent candidates need between 1,000 and 1,961 signatures, depending on which district the candidate is running in.
On April 10, the Constitution Party of Tennessee, and the Green Party of Tennessee, filed this brief in the 6th circuit. The state is trying to persuade the 6th Circuit to remove these two parties from the 2012 ballot. A U.S. District Court had put them on, on February 3, 2012. The state says the two parties haven’t shown a modicum of voter support.
On April 12, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued this 12-page order in Nader v Federal Election Commission, 1:10cv989. Nader had filed the case in 2010, arguing that the FEC was wrong to have dismissed his complaint against the Democratic Party for spending millions of dollars in 2004 to keep him off the ballot, and then failing to report these expenditures. Nader couldn’t file the case earlier than 2010 because it took the FEC so long to dismiss Nader’s complaint.
On November 9, 2011, Judge Lamberth had dismissed Nader’s lawsuit against the FEC. On December 9, Nader had asked him to reconsider. Judge Lamberth won’t reconsider, but it is noteworthy that he wrote such a lengthy explanation defending his original decision. Nader will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
