The February 26 issue of the Sunshine News mentions the possibility that former Congressman Virgil Goode may be the Constitution Party’s presidential nominee here. The mention is at the bottom of the “Presidential Derby” column written by Kevin Derby. The Sunshine News is an electronic newspaper in Florida.
On February 25, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Commissions, Elections & Legislation released the write-in results from the November 2, 2010 election. However, the information does not seem to be on the Bureau’s web page yet. It appears that eight counties did not tally any write-ins at all for any office. They are Clarion, Clinton, Jefferson, Lawrence, Mifflin, Montgomery, Perry, and Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania is the only large state that has no procedure for write-in candidates who want their vote tallied to file a declaration of write-in candidacy. All write-in votes are valid votes in Pennsylvania, and the state admits that the law requires that all write-ins be counted. The Pennsylvania Constitution protects write-in votes. In 1905, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said, “Unless there was such provision to enable the voter not satisfied to vote any ticket on the ballot, or for any names appearing on it, to make up an entire ticket of his own choice, the election as to him would not be equal, for he would not be able to express his own individual will in his own way.” Oughton v Black, 61 A. 346, at page 348.
Former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado has filed paperwork to run for Congress in 2012, according to this news story.
A U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington, will conduct a trial in Doe v Reed starting on September 27, 2011. This the case filed in July 2009 over whether people who signed one particular referendum petition are entitled to keep their names and addresses from being made public. The U.S. District Court had ruled that the First Amendment protects privacy for petition signers, but the 9th circuit had reversed. Then, on June 24, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court had issued an opinion saying that there is no such privacy right in general, but that if the proponents can show that there is a reasonable chance that they would be harassed, then they are entitled to privacy.
Thus, the trial will be to determine whether the signers of this one particular referendum petition qualify for privacy. The subject of this particular referendum was whether or not to rescind a bill passed by the Washington state legislature for civil unions for same-sex couples. The referendum was held in 2009 and the voters upheld the civil unions law.
In a sense, the people who filed the lawsuit have already partially won, because while the case is pending, their names and addresses continue to be withheld. As time passes, fewer and fewer people will even remember or care who signed the petition.
On February 23, Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed HB 60, the Secretary of State’s first omnibus election law bill this session. The bill moves the primary for all office from the fourth week in May to the third week in May, along with lots of other minor election law changes.
The Secretary of State plans a second omnibus bill, to be introduced soon, that will lower the number of signatures needed for an independent presidential candidate. The existing law was declared unconstitutional last year and the state did not appeal. This second omnibus election law bill will contain many other unrelated election law provisions.
