Indiana requires 4,500 signatures to get on a presidential primary ballot, and 500 in each U.S. House district. According to this story, Rick Santorum is fighting a ruling that he failed to submit 500 valid signatures in the 7th district.
Reply
Four Georgia State Senators, all Republicans, have introduced SB 377. It would require that no one could sign any type of ballot access petition, without first showing the circulator a government-photo ID. The circulator of the petition would be required to certify under penalty of perjury that everyone who signed his or her petition showed one of these: (1) a Georgia drivers license; (2) a Georgia state ID card; (3) a U.S. passport; (4) a government employee photo-ID; (5) a U.S. military ID; (6) a tribal photo-ID.
The four sponsors are Senators Buddy Carter of Pooler, Tommie Williams of Lyons, Joshua McKoon of Columbus, and Judson Hill of Marietta. In Georgia, candidates running in Democratic and Republican primaries never need to circulate any petition in order to get on the ballot, assuming they pay the filing fee.
Such a law, if enacted, would make it far more difficult to obtain signatures. Many signatures are collected in parks and beaches, where many of the signers may not have their wallets or purses with them. Furthermore, the law would slow the petitioning process, and also make it more difficult to persuade people to sign. Also, thousands of people don’t possess any of those documents and would lose their constitutional right to sign a petition. As far as is known, there has never been a law like this enacted in any state. Thanks to Garland Favorito for this news.
Currently, Alabama law permits petitioning and other activity at the polls on election day, as long as the petitioners or canvassers are at least 30 feet from the polling location. Representative Jack Williams (R-Birmingham) has introduced HB 44, to increase the prohibited zone to 150 feet from the polling location.
Late on February 7, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a two-page order, keeping Alejandrina Cabrera off the ballot for city council of San Luis, Arizona. The Court said it would explain its reasoning later. Cabrera was also kept off the ballot by the lower court, because the lower court had ruled that she doesn’t speak English well enough to comply with a state law that says public officials must speak English. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
The Missouri Secretary of State’s web page has election returns for the presidential primaries. Use this link. Ten percent of the precincts have reported, and Rick Santorum is leading in the Republican primary.