Wisconsin state election officials say they will need more than the legally mandated 31 days to process the gubernatorial recall petition. This story says the signatures will be turned in next week, and there may be as many as 1,500,000 signatures. The state will not check to see if each signer is a registered voter, but will eliminate duplicate signatures.
Marcy Winograd, a prominent activist in the Los Angeles Democratic Party for six years, has changed her registration to the Green Party. She here for more information about Winograd’s activism. She twice challenged Democratic Congressmember Jane Harman in Democratic primaries, receiving 37.5% in 2006 and 41% in 2010.
According to this story, Stephen Colbert may announce on his show on the evening of January 12 that he will be a write-in candidate in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina. The primary is January 21. South Carolina Republican presidential primary ballots contain write-in space. UPDATE: South Carolina Republican presidential primary ballots do not include write-in space. Thanks to Doug Chapin, via Rick Hasen, for this update. FURTHER UPDATE: Colbert did announce, but as this article says, no one will be allowed to vote for him.
On January 11, Illinois state representative Rosemary Mulligan withdrew from the Republican primary ballot, in the face of a challenge to her primary petition. See this story. She will run as a write-in candidate in the Republican primary. She needs 500 write-ins. No one else is on the Republican primary ballot in her race, which is in the 55th district.
She has been in the legislature since 1992. In November 2010, she was re-elected with 67.6% of the vote. This example shows the absurdity of the idea that voter support for a candidate should be equated with his or her ability to complete a petition. It is very likely she will receive the needed 500 votes in the Republican primary to win a place on the November ballot. If she does not, the lone Democratic candidate will probably be the only name on the November ballot. Thanks to Ken Krawchuk for this news.
Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley issued an injunction, putting the Ohio Libertarian Party on the ballot. The Ohio Secretary of State did not appeal, but the Ohio legislature then moved to intervene. On December 21, 2011, the Ohio legislature filed a brief in the 6th circuit, arguing that the U.S. District Court should not have put the Libertarian Party on the ballot. The brief also argues that the legislature has standing to intervene, and that its appeal is timely.
The legislature argues that when it passed a new ballot access law in the summer of 2011, that new law was constitutional, and the Libertarian Party should have then commenced to get the required 38,525 signatures, even though at the time no one knew if that law were going to be in effect or not. The uncertainty was caused by the fact that a referendum petition was filed against the new law, preventing it from going into effect. Furthermore, neither the Libertarian Party nor anyone else could possibly have known what the petition deadline would be. The new law said the petition deadline would be 90 days before the primary, but the legislature moved the date of the primary twice during the latter half of 2011. The legislature’s argument is almost laughable. The Ohio Libertarian Party will be filing its response soon. In the meantime, the state is going ahead with preparations for the Libertarian Party primary, and the primary for the other minor parties that were added to the ballot by the Secretary of State because it didn’t make sense for him to put the Libertarian Party on, and not the other minor parties.
