Only Five Petition Candidates in New Jersey Gubernatorial Race

Posted on by June 4, 2013
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New Jersey requires 800 signatures for an independent candidate, or for the nominee of an unqualified party, to get on the ballot for a statewide race. This year, only five petitions were submitted for Governor-Lieutenant Governor. See the state’s list here. They include Steve Welzer for the Green Party, Kenneth Kaplan for the Libertarian Party, Diane Sare for the LaRouche organization, and two independent candidates: William Araujo, who hasn’t chosen his ballot label yet, and Hank Schroeder, who uses the label “Don’t Look Back” in half the counties and “Economic Growth” in the other half.

This is the smallest number of petitioning candidates in a New Jersey gubernatorial general election since 1989, when there were a total of six candidates on the ballot. New Jersey hasn’t had any ballot-qualified parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties since the law was amended in 1920, to define “party” as a group that had polled at least 10% of the vote for Assembly in the entire state. “Assembly” is the New Jersey name for the lower house of the state legislature.

The deadline for the petitions is 4 p.m. on June 4 (Tuesday) so it is possible some more candidates will submit petitions. The link to the state list of candidates can be used to determine if more candidates enter later today.

Connecticut Legislature Passes Bill Outlawing Fusion for New and Small Parties

Posted on by June 4, 2013
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On June 4, the Connecticut legislature passed HB 6580, which outlaws fusion unless both parties had polled at least 15,000 votes for one of the state statewide offices at the previous gubernatorial election. The bill passed the House on June 1 and the Senate on June 4. It also alters campaign finance laws. See this story, which is not accurate when it says the bill entirely bans fusion. “Fusion” means the practice of two parties jointly nominating the same candidate, so that his or her name appears on the November ballot with both party labels.

Assuming the Governor signs the bill and it takes effect, it is probably unconstitutional. States are free to ban fusion if they wish, but they cannot do so in a discriminatory manner. For instance, the Third Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law in 1999 that permitted fusion between two large parties but not fusion between a large party and a small party, in Reform Party of Allegheny County v Allegheny County Department of Elections, 174 F.3d 305.

This is the same bill that temporarily had another provision, making it illegal for a party to have “Independent” or “Independence” in its name, but that provision was deleted from the final bill.

In 2010, the Working Families Party and the Independent Party each polled over 15,000 votes for some or all of the statewide state offices, so they retain the ability to engage in fusion. But the Libertarian Party’s highest statewide vote in 2010 was 14,748, and the Green Party’s highest was 10,328, so this bill eliminates their ability to engage in fusion. Those two parties don’t generally engage in fusion anyway, and the Green Party never does, but it is still unconstitutional to remove the ability from them and retain it for certain other parties. The bill also discriminates against newly-formed parties because they could not have met the requirement in the past gubernatorial election, because they didn’t exist then.

South Carolina Legislative Conference Committee Passes “Equal Access to Ballot Act”

Posted on by June 4, 2013
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On June 4, a South Carolina conference committee passed SB 2, the “Equal Access to Ballot Act.” The bill is helpful, although one could argue that its title exaggerates what it actually does. It provides that all candidates, incumbents and challengers alike, are treated the same relative to filing campaign finance documents. Under current law, incumbents didn’t have the same requirements to file certain campaign finance documents that challengers did.

More important, the bill provides that when a legally required campaign finance document is not filed in a timely way, the candidate is fined, but still appears on the primary ballot. Assuming this bill now passes both Houses and is signed into law, it would prevent a recurrence of what happened in 2012, when over 200 candidates for state and local office were kept off primary ballots because they had not filed certain campaign finance documents both in paper and electronically. See this story. The conference committee had been appointed May 2, and it took over a month before it finalized the bill language.

If South Carolina truly had an “equal access to ballot” law, it would let independent candidates get on the general election ballot without a petition, if they paid the same filing fee that primary candidates must file. That idea was not discussed and has nothing to do with the contents of the actual bill. South Carolina petitions for independent candidates for the legislature are tied with Georgia and North Carolina for being the most restrictive in the nation. They require 5% of the number of registered voters to sign the petition for legislative independent candidates.