New Mexico Says Americans Elect Petition Has Enough Valid Signatures

Posted on by February 4, 2012
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The New Mexico Secretary of State’s office says the Americans Elect petition is valid. The state requires 3,009 signatures. Americans Elect is the first group to submit a successful petition for party recognition in New Mexico since 2010.

Parties that were already ballot-qualified in New Mexico for 2012, besides the Democrats and Republicans, are the Libertarian Party (which petitioned in 2010) and the Independent Party (which met the vote test in 2008). In New Mexico, when a party either petitions or meets the vote test, then it is ballot-qualified for the next two elections.

Rick Santorum Petition Ruled Invalid in Indiana

Posted on by February 3, 2012
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Rick Santorum’s petition for ballot access in the Indiana presidential primary has been ruled insufficient. He had the needed 4,500 signatures statewide, but Indiana also requires 500 in each U.S. House district, and in one district he was 24 signatures short. He says he will fight the decision and that many signatures were invalidated improperly. See this story.

Tennessee Ballot Access Law for New and Minor Parties Struck Down

Posted on by February 3, 2012
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On February 3, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Haynes invalidated Tennessee’s new ballot access law for minor parties. The case is Green Party of Tennessee and Constitution Party of Tennessee v Hargett, 3:11-00692. The decision is 90 pages. It strikes down the early April petition deadline, and also strikes down the 40,029 signature petition requirement. And, it says that it is unconstitutional to force minor parties to nominate by primary, at least in the context of an open primary state that doesn’t have party registration. It strikes down the 2011 law that reserves the best positions on the ballot for the two major parties.

The decision also puts the Constitution and Green Parties on the 2012 ballot, based on the evidence that in the recent past, both parties did collect several thousand signatures on petitions to get on the Tennessee ballot.

Georgia Administrative Law Judge Determines that President Obama Meets the Qualifications to be President

Posted on by February 3, 2012
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On February 3, an administrative law judge in Georgia ruled that President Obama’s name should be left on the Georgia Democratic presidential primary. The 10-page decision finds that the witnesses who testified that President Obama was not born in Hawaii did not establish any credentials as experts. He also ruled that “natural born citizen” means anyone (with very limited exceptions) who was born in the United States.