On August 10, a Maryland circuit court upheld the ability of petitioning groups to make their blank petitions available on the internet, so that anyone with access to a computer can print his or her own copy of the petition, sign the petition, and also sign off as the circulator. This method was pioneered by https://MDpetitions.com. The particular petition at issue in the court case was one to force a referendum on the state’s most recent U.S. House redistricting plan. Democrats, who oppose the referendum, asked the court to invalidate the petitions that were prepared by the web page, but the lower court reject the position of the Democratic Party. The party will now appeal to the highest state court, the Maryland State Court of Appeals. Thanks to Doug McNeil for this news. Here is a story about the case.
News21 is a project founded in 2005 by several journalism schools, to promote excellence in journalism. Read about News21 here. Recently News21 released a comprehensive study of all types of voter or elections fraud in the U.S., back to 2000. All fifty states were canvassed. The project found only ten instances at which anyone had tried to impersonate another person while trying to vote at the polls. The project found a great deal of voter fraud, but impersonation of others at the polls was miniscule compared to other types of fraud. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On August 10, Ralph Nader filed this opening brief in Nader v Federal Election Commission. The Democratic Party and many of its close allies spent millions of dollars to remove Nader from ballots in 18 states in 2004, but didn’t follow federal campaign laws when it made these expenditures. Nader had then complained to the FEC, but the FEC not only didn’t enforce the law, it didn’t even notify the Democratic Party about the Nader complaint. Nader then sued the FEC in U.S. District Court, but the U.S. District Court, though agreeing that the FEC had not followed the law, said the FEC had only committed “harmless error.” Nader asks the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the U.S. District Court decision.
Part of the reason this case was filed so many years after the 2004 election is that the FEC did nothing with the complaint for several years.
Paul Ryan will run for re-election to his U.S. House seat in Wisconsin, while also running as the Republican nominee for vice-president. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On August 11, the American Independent Party (AIP) nominated Tom Hoefling for President at its state convention in Sacramento, California. The convention was in the meeting room of Perkos Restaurant, 925 Third Street.
Only seven delegates were present when the vote was taken: Markham Robinson, Mary Robinson, Mark Seidenberg, Rev. Wiley Drake, Dennis Aguirre, John Robertson, and Phelps Hobart. A majority of votes cast were proxies of people who were not in attendance. Most of these proxies were controlled by Markham Robinson. There were 7 in-person votes and 13 proxy votes. The original vote was 19 for Hoefling and one for Goode, but then the Goode voter switched his vote to Hoefling so that the vote was unanimous.
Several hours earlier, three delegates, all backing Ed Noonan for President, had left the convention in protest. Noonan, who was one of those three delegates, told the gathering that he should be the presidential nominee because he had won the presidential primary and he had contributed many years of service to the AIP. Noonan accurately perceived what the vote was going to be, even though that vote was still several hours in the future at the time he left, so he and his backers saw no reason to remain for the vote.
The convention chose Dr. Robert Ornelas of Anaheim, California, for vice-president. He works with a group that develops Christian hip hop evangelistic messages. He did not attend the convention but he had phoned in on speaker phone and had asked for the vice-presidential nomination. However, when he asked for it, he was holding himself out as the running mate for Rev. Wiley Drake. Drake, who did attend the convention, had asked for the presidential nomination but did not receive it.