On March 21, the Arizona Judiciary Committee passed SB 1263. It sets forth procedures by which out-of-state paid circulators would register with the Secretary of State. The circulators would also provide a copy of the completed registration to the employer. Read the bill here.
At the November 2012 election, four populous counties in Pennsylvania did not canvass any write-in votes, even though state law requires that all valid votes must be tallied. The four counties are Chester, Dauphin, Lackawanna, and Lancaster. Each of them has more than 200,000 residents, and Chester and Lancaster each have approximately 500,000 residents.
Pennsylvania Election Code section 3154(a) says, “The county board shall, at 9:00 A.M. on the third day following the primary or election, at its office or at some other convenient public place at the county seat, publicly commence the computation and canvassing of the returns, and continue the same from day to day until completed, in the manner hereinafter provided. Upon the completion of such computation and canvassing, the board shall tabulate the figures for the entire county and sign, announce and attest the same, as required by this section.”
Unlike the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania has no law or regulation saying write-ins should not be counted unless the vote-counting equipment suggests that a write-in candidate may have won a primary or an election. Write-ins have always been permitted in Pennsylvania, ever since the first government-printed ballots. In 1905, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in Oughton v Black, 61 A. 346, that if a ballot didn’t contain write-in space, that ballot would violate the state Constitution. The Court said, “Unless there was such provision to enable the voter not satisfied to vote any ticket on the ballot, or for any names appearing on it, to make up an entire ticket of his own choice, the election as to him would not be equal, for he would not be able to express his own individual will in his own way.”
Less-populated counties that also didn’t tally any write-ins in November 2012 were Crawford, Elk, Perry, and Snyder Counties. The failure of Lancaster County to canvass the write-ins was especially injurious to the Constitution Party’s write-in total, because Lancaster County is the party’s center of organizational strength. The party’s vice-presidential nominee, Jim Clymer, lives in Lancaster County, so his own vote was not counted.
New Lenox, Illinois, has an elected School Board of seven members. Each member is elected in non-partisan elections to a four-year term. This year four full-length seats are up. Also there is a special election for a two-year term to fill a vacancy. The only ballot-listed candidate for the short term is Kathleen Miller. The election is April 9, 2013.
Earlier this year, another board member, Maureen Broderick, who is not up for re-election this year, challenged Miller’s petition. The basis for the challenge was a technicality. Miller had circulated her own petition, and she accidentally signed off in the line reserved for the Notary, instead of the line for the circulator. Broderick challenged the petition, but then she withdrew her challenge and then a third individual filed the same type of challenge. Broderick, as the Secretary of the Board, was then in a position to vote on whether Miller should be removed from the ballot. The Board members did then remove Miller from the ballot, but Miller sued and a state court judge ruled that she should be on the ballot.
On March 27, Miller sued Broderick in U.S. District Court. The Complaint points out that Broderick was acting in her capacity as an officer of the local school board when she voted to remove Miller from the ballot, so in a sense the lawsuit is against an action taken by a government. The complaint says that it violates due process for someone to file a challenge to someone else’s petition, and then vote on that same challenge. The case is Miller v Broderick, northern district, 1:13cv-2281.
Madison, Wisconsin, elected members of the city council and school board on April 2. Two Greens who had not previously been incumbents were elected. Ledell Zellers was elected to the city council, ward 2. Dean Loumos was elected to the School Board. This post has been re-written. Thanks to Mike for the news. UPDATE: also, a former Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Rae Vogeler, was elected in a non-partisan election to the Oregon School Board. Oregon is a suburb of Madison.
California holds a special election on May 21 to fill the vacant State Senate seat, 16th district, in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Five candidates will appear on the ballot: three Democrats, one Republican, and one member of the Peace & Freedom Party. The PFP candidate is Mohammad Arif. He is the first person, other than registered Democrats or Republicans, to appear on the ballot for any California special partisan election this year. This election will be the third special State Senate in California so far this year.
