At 2:28 a.m. on February 4, an Indiana criminal jury convicted Secretary of State Charlie White of registering and voting at an address which wasn’t his real residence. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. The judge will decide whether White is now convicted of felonies or misdemeanors.
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’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.
On January 31, the Nebraska Senate Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee amended LB 759. The original bill repeals the residency requirement for petition circulators, but also required circulators to wear a badge. However, the bill has now been amended to delete the badge requirement.
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.
