According to this story, the Black caucus of the Green Party has endorsed Roseanne Barr for the party’s presidential nomination.
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The Oklahoma State Board of Elections has determined that the Americans Elect petition for party status has enough valid signatures. This is the first time any newly-qualifying party has been recognized in Oklahoma since 2000.
The Board says the Libertarian Party has 41,070 valid signatures, which is short of the legal requirement of 51,739. The status of the Libertarian Party now depends on what happens next in the party’s lawsuit, which challenges the March 1 deadline, and also challenges the due process problem that the 2011 legislation that moved the deadline deprived the party of its legal right to have one year to complete the petition drive.
On February 28, the Missouri House gave preliminary approval to HB 1046. The bill had passed the Rules Committee on March 8. It still hasn’t passed the House on third reading. It requires political parties to provide copies of birth certificates for their nominees for President and Vice-President. It also requires birth certificates for declared write-in presidential candidates. Oddly, it does not require birth certificates for independent presidential candidates. See this story. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.
John Fockler, Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, has received at least 750 write-in votes in the March 6, 2012 Libertarian primary, and probably over 800. He needed 500 write-ins to qualify to be listed on the November ballot. The election night primary returns had shown him with only 407, but election night returns for write-in candidates are invariably not accurate.
His name wasn’t printed on the primary ballot because he would have needed a petition of 500 valid names, and people who had voted in a 2010 primary (other than the 2010 Libertarian primary) were not eligible to sign. Also, because the state changed the date of its primary from May to March at the very end of 2011, there wasn’t much time for candidates to collect signatures on primary petitions. Thanks to Kevin Knedler for this news.
Americans Elect says it is about to submit approximately 72,000 signatures to election officials in Tennessee. The turn-in will be Thursday, March 29. See this story.
The other qualified parties in Tennessee are Democratic, Republican, Green, and Constitution. The latter two got on the ballot by winning a lawsuit. The state is appealing the lawsuit decision, but in the meantime, the plaintiff political parties are on the ballot, because the U.S. District Court has refused to issue a stay of its own opinion. The state, so far at least, has not asked the Sixth Circuit to expedite the appeal.