This Los Angeles Times story says Wisconsin state election officials have posted the names and addresses of people who signed the statewide recall petitions. There are two such petitions, one for Governor and one for Lieutenant Governor. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
The North Dakota Libertarian Party has decided ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its ballot access appeal. The 8th circuit had upheld the law, which requires a party that wants to have legislative candidates on the November ballot to persuade between 10% and 15% of all primary voters to choose that minor party’s primary ballot.
The law is so severe, no minor party nominee for state legislature has been on the North Dakota general election ballot since 1976.
The 8th circuit opinion is factually flawed. The opinion said that the primary vote test is the only ballot access barrier for minor parties, and that once a party submits its original ballot access petition of 15,000 signatures, it may stay on the ballot forever. This is utterly untrue. But when the factual error was pointed out to the 8th circuit in a request for a rehearing, the 8th circuit denied the request without comment.
On January 31, California elections officials released new registration data for each qualified party, and also for each political body. In California, a “political body” is a group that has told the Secretary of State that it is trying to qualify. The Justice Party was and is a political body, but Los Angeles County did not follow correct procedures, and reported “zero” members of the Justice Party. The Justice Party does have registered voters in Los Angeles County. The party has complained, but the county, so far, has said it is too much work to find the people who are registered in the Justice Party, because they are now in the computer as independent voters and someone would need to physically examine all the voters coded as independents to find the Justice Party members.
According to this story, Howard Hawk, Presiding Circuit Judge for Marshall County, Alabama, will run for re-election this year as an independent candidate. Alabama elects its state judges in partisan elections. Hawk filed for the Republican primary but the county party rejected him. Alabama law lets political parties block candidates from running in their primaries for any reason. Republican legislative leaders had welcomed Hawk into the Republican Party, but the Marshall County Republican Party distrusts him because he was a Democrat until mid-2011. Alabama does not have registration by party, and has open primaries.
On January 31, Oregon held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, First District. The unofficial results: Suzanne Bonamici, Democrat, 53.96%; Rob Cornilles, Republican, 39.65%; Steven Reynolds, Progressive, 3.23%; James Foster, Libertarian, 3.16%.
In November 2010, the results for this same seat had been: Democratic 54.82%; Republican 42.00%; Constitution 1.32%; Green/Progressive 1.01%; Libertarian .85%.
