Americans Elect’s web page now says 1,938,465 signatures on ballot access petitions have been gathered nationwide. Last week’s total had been 1,903,444.
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The November 3 Arizona Republic, the daily newspaper for Phoenix, has this editorial about the Republican majority in the Senate’s removal of the chair of the Redistricting Commission. The Commission has 5 members, and the Senate and the Governor removed the only independent member. Supporters of the Commission charge that due process was not followed, and the matter will end up in court.
On November 1, the Wisconsin Assembly passed SB 116, the bill to move the non-presidential primary from September to August. However, the Assembly also amended the bill. The original bill moved the petition deadline for qualifying a new party from June 1 to April 1. However, as amended, the bill now sets a May 1 petition deadline.
There is no change to the number of signatures for a new party, 10,000. Nor is there any change in the existing law that makes it illegal to circulate the party petition in an odd year.
The bill shifts the petitioning periods for independent candidates. Current law says independent presidential petitions are circulated between August 1 and the first Tuesday in September; the bill changes that from July 1 to the first Tuesday in August. Current law says non-presidential independents circulate petitions between June 1 and the second Tuesday in July; the bill changes that to between May 1 and the second Tuesday in June. The bill now goes back to the Senate.
On November 2, California elections officials completed their random sample check of the Americans Elect petition to be a qualified party. Americans Elect had submitted 1,621,318 signatures to meet a requirement of 1,030,040 valid signatures. The random sample shows that the petition has a 69.55% validity rate, and that the petition has 1,127,634 valid signatures.
However, California Election code section 9031(a) says that when a statewide initiative petition random sample shows that the number of valid signatures is less than 110% of the legal requirement, then the elections officials can’t use the results of the random sample, and must check every signature. The process of checking every signature will be expensive for elections officials. The job must be done in six weeks, starting today. The Secretary of State applies the initiative random sample rules to petitions to qualify new parties.
Americans Elect is free to submit more signatures, although it almost certainly doesn’t feel the need to do so. A statistician would say that any petition as large as this one, with a random sample validity of 109.5% of the requirement, is overwhelmingly likely to be valid.
This instance shows that excessively difficult ballot access is bad for election administrators and taxpayers, as well as bad for parties and candidates.
On November 2, the Syracuse Post-Standard endorsed Howie Hawkins for Syracuse City Council, 4th district. Hawkins is the Green Party nominee. His only opponent is the Democratic nominee. Here is the endorsement editorial (scroll down to the 4th district). Syracuse, and all New York municipalities, uses partisan elections for city office. Thanks to Green Party Watch for the link.