Politico has this story about Roseanne Barr, with an emphasis on her somewhat slow start on raising campaign contributions. She is seeking the Green Party presidential nomination.
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Jon Barrie is likely to qualify for the November 2012 ballot for U.S. Senate candidate in New Mexico. If he does so, he will be the first non-Democrat, non-Republican candidate for U.S. Senate to appear on a New Mexico ballot since 1996, when a Green and a Libertarian each qualified.
Independent candidates in New Mexico face a severe petition burden, 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. Therefore, Barrie created the Independent American Party of New Mexico, and submitted 5,900 signatures by the April 2012 deadline. That was almost twice as many signatures as were needed. But New Mexico forces qualified minor parties to submit separate petitions for each of their nominees. So he must also submit a petition of 6,018 valid signatures, by late June, to qualify for the ballot. The two petitions combined, requiring a total of 9,027 signatures, still total fewer signatures than the statewide independent petition, which requires 18,053 valid signatures.
Barrie’s campaign web page is jonbarrieforsenate.com. Barrie is not opposed to having his party nominate like-minded candidates for other partisan office this year.
In 2011, the Illinois House passed HB 2009, which says that no one who voted in a primary, or who filed a declaration of candidacy to run in a primary (but who then chose not to run in that primary), can then be an independent candidate in November. The law applies to all partisan office. The bill then languished in a Senate committee for almost a full year.
Illinois held its primary this year, for president and all other office, in March 20, 2012.
Then, on March 27, HB 2009, which had long been forgotten, was shifted to another Committee in the Senate. On March 29 it passed the Senate 53-3. Governor Pat Quinn signed it the next day. It has an urgency clause so took effect on March 30. So now anyone who voted in the Democratic or Republican primary on March 20 this year cannot run for any partisan office in November as an independent candidate.
This maneuver almost certainly violates due process. It is fundamentally unfair to pass a law that adversely affects primary voters after the primary is over and to make it effective so that it affects this year’s general election.
Illinois does not have registration by party. If this law had been in effect in 1980, it would apparently have prevented John B. Anderson from getting on the ballot as an independent candidate, since he voted in the March 1980 Republican presidential primary. He didn’t declare as an independent until April 24, 1980.
On April 14, the Egyptian Election Commission barred ten presidential candidates from the ballot, including three who had been considered possible winners. See this New York Times story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
The Bar Area Reporter, northern California’s largest gay publication, has this story on Stephen Durham, presidential candidate of the Freedom Socialist Party. The Bay Area Reporter always gives extensive coverage to major party stories, but seldom runs articles of this length about minor party candidates. Durham is gay and is apparently the only self-identified gay person running for President in the general election this year.