Three Minor Party Presidential Candidates May Receive Primary Matching Funds in 2012

Posted on by March 17, 2012
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It is possible that three presidential candidates, all of whom are seeking a minor party presidential nomination, will qualify for primary season matching funds this year. Buddy Roemer, who is seeking the Americans Elect nomination, was certified for primary season matching funds on February 2, 2012. Gary Johnson is seeking them and his campaign says so far he has raised the needed $5,000 in fourteen states. Twenty states are needed to satisfy the legal requirements. Jill Stein is seeking the funds and her campaign says so far she has raised the needed $5,000 in three states.

The primary season matching funds program has existed starting in 1976, and there has never been a presidential election in which three minor party presidential candidates received matching funds. The funds must be raised before the candidate has been nominated for President. Johnson must meet the qualifications before the Libertarian convention in early May, and Stein must meet them before the Green convention in mid-July. The money may be used for general election petitioning.

Scotusblog Posts Its Belief that North Dakota Libertarian Ballot Access Case May Interest U.S. Supreme Court

Posted on by March 17, 2012
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On March 16, Scotusblog posted its “Cert petition of the day”, which is Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger. Scotusblog editors had previously said they would feature this case, but now have actually done so. See here.

On March 12, North Dakota sent a letter to the U.S. Supreme Court, waiving its right to file a response.

In other U.S. Supreme Court news, the Court held a conference on March 16 on whether to hear Maslow v New York State Board of Elections, 11-857. The Court will probably reveal on March 19 whether it wants to hear this case. The issue is whether a state may make it illegal for someone to circulate a petition to get a candidate on the primary ballot, if the circulator is not a registered member of the candidate’s party. The lower court had upheld the New York state law, which prevented a wife from helping circulate her husband’s petition to get on a primary ballot.

Montana Secretary of State Expresses Dismay at Possibility of a Libertarian Statewide Primary

Posted on by March 17, 2012
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Two candidates have filed for U.S. Senate in the Montana Libertarian primary. Montana requires parties with ongoing ballot status to nominate by primary, but does not actually print up primary ballots unless there is a contest. See this story, which says that Montana hasn’t printed up primary ballots for any qualified party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, since 1996, when the Reform Party had a contested primary. The story also says the Secretary of State will try to avoid a Libertarian primary and is considering listing both candidates on the November ballot.

The odd part of this story is that neither the Secretary of State, nor the legislator who is quoted in the story, seems to have thought that a good solution would be to let small qualified parties nominate by convention. The Libertarian Party has candidates for a majority of the statewide offices in Montana this year, but only in the U.S. Senate race is there more than a single candidate from that party. Thanks to Mike Fellows for the link.

U.S. District Court in Tennessee Refuses to Stay its own Order in Ballot Access Case

Posted on by March 16, 2012
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On March 16, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Haynes refused to stay his own ruling in the Tennessee ballot access case, Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett, 3:11-0692. The original decision in this case, handed down on February 3, 2012, struck down the state’s ballot access law for newly-qualifying parties. It also ruled that a 2011 law, providing that the two major parties should always have the top two spots on the ballot, is unconstitutional. Finally, it ordered the state to recognize the two plaintiff political parties, the Green Party and the Constitution Party.

The state had then asked Judge Haynes to stay his own opinion. Specifically the state asked him to stay the part of the decision on the order of political parties on the ballot, and the part of the decision that put the two plaintiff parties on the ballot.

The March 16 Memorandum from the Court rebuts the state’s argument on ballot order. The state, in its request for a stay, had asserted that Tennessee has party column ballots, and that the social science research on the effect of ballot order cited in the original February 3, 2012 decision only relates to office-group ballots. Judge Haynes went to the trouble of finding examples of recent Tennessee ballots. The ballots he found, and which he attached to his opinion, prove that in some populous counties in Tennessee, an office-group ballot is used.

An “office-group ballot” lists each office up for election, and then underneath that particular office heading, lists all the candidates running for that office. By contrast, a “party-column” ballot divides the ballot into rectangular boxes, with all of one particular party’s nominees in one column (or, in one row, depending on the layout).

The Tennessee vocabulary for these ballot types does not use the common vocabulary. In Tennessee law, an office-group ballot is called a block-ballot, and a party-column ballot is called a “party block ballot.” The decision uses the Tennessee terms, not the standard terms.