On January 10, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit on California State Senate district boundaries. This case has been well-covered in California media. Here is a story that explains the situation very well. The period for collecting signatures in lieu of filing fees has already opened in California, so the uncertainty over the district boundaries is disruptive.
Robert David Steele is a Virginian who is seeking the Reform Party presidential nomination. He recently investigated the Americans Elect nomination process, and he has written an interesting commentary about it. According to Steele, a high-placed official with Americans Elect says the Americans Elect web page will be revised by the end of January, to list all candidates who have expressed an interest in the Americans Elect presidential nomination.
Steele is a former civilian officer with the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence unit, and a former CIA case officer, and has written five books about intelligence gathering. He is a proponent of the open source intelligence movement. Here is the wiki article about him. His full name is somewhat ambiguous; sometimes he uses “Robert David Steele” and sometimes “Robert David Steele Vivas”, in the Latin American style that includes the mother’s maiden name as part of the surname.
The Peace & Freedom Party of California is entitled to its own presidential primary in 2012. That ballot will include four candidates: (1) Stewart Alexander; (2) Rocky Anderson; (3) Peta Lindsay; (4) Stephen Durham.
Alexander is already the Socialist Party nominee; Rocky Anderson will probably be the Justice Party nominee; Peta Lindsay is the nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and Stephen Durham is the nominee of the Freedom Socialist Party. None of those four parties is on the California ballot, so each hopes for the Peace and Freedom nomination so as to be on the November 2012 ballot in California.
On January 10, the attorney for the Alabama Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties mailed a complaint to the U.S. District Court in Alabama. The case is Stein v Chapman, number not assigned yet. The lawsuit challenges the March 13 petition deadline for new or previously unqualified parties. The statewide petition requires 44,829 valid signatures.
The 2011 session of the legislature moved the petition deadline from June to March. In 1991 the 11th circuit ruled that Alabama’s old ballot access law, which required 12,345 valid signatures by April, was unconstitutional because the deadline was too early.
On January 10, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney, Jr., ordered the Virginia State Board of Elections to inform all local electoral boards that they should not print or distribute any Republican presidential primary absentee ballots until the hearing on January 13 over the constitutionality of the Virginia ballot access laws. Judge Gibney also said, “The Court finds that there is a strong likelihood that the Court will find the residency requirement for petition circulators to be unconstitutional.”
The State Board of Elections filed an immediate appeal with the Fourth Circuit. In that Fourth Circuit, the case is Perry v Judd, 12-1042. Judge Gibney had previously ordered the State Board of Elections not to print or mail any absentee ballots, but until the January 10 order, the county and independent city electoral boards had not been instructed to delay any preparations for the March 6 primary.
