On December 15, at 9:30 p.m., Ohio Governor John Kasich signed HB 369, which sets a March 6, 2012 primary for president and all other office.
Primary filing remains open until December 30 for U.S. House and President. However, it closed earlier this month for U.S. Senate, and state and local partisan office, and won’t be re-opened.
According to this story, negotiations over the date of the 2012 Texas presidential primary are focusing on moving it to early April. An April presidential primary would automatically result in a late June petition deadline for previously unqualified parties, instead of a May deadline.
If the deadline becomes June instead of May, that would mean that all states in 2012 would have some procedure for getting on the November ballot for President in which the petition deadline was in June, July, August, or September. That would be good news for anyone who gets into the race late. However, in order to take advantage of the party petition deadline, the proposed new party must have filed a notice no later than January 2, 2012, with the Texas Secretary of State, saying it intends to qualify as a party. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for the link.
Three candidates have paid the $2,500 filing fee to appear on the Texas Democratic presidential primary. Besides President Obama, they are Darcy Richardson of Florida, and Bob Ely of Illinois.
The web page for Richardson is darcy2012.com. The web page for Ely is workmorekeepless.com.
It is possible others will qualify, because the deadline is not until Monday, December 19. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
On December 14, a single justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court referred the lawsuit Libertarian Association of Massachusetts v Galvin to the full State Supreme Court. The referral was made by Justice Robert Cordy. This makes it very likely that the full court will hear and decide the case.
The case originated in 2008, when the Libertarian Party submitted a petition to be on the November ballot for President, using a stand-in presidential candidate on the petition. The party used a stand-in because it wanted to start circulating its petition before the national convention had chosen the actual presidential nominee. Massachusetts had permitted stand-ins in the past, and in 2007 had even told the party that it would furnish the forms necessary to do this. But then, when the party submitted its petition and tried to replace the stand-in with the actual nominee, the state refused. The party then won in U.S. District Court. But, after the election was over, the First Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court’s decision on constitutionality. But, the First Circuit said perhaps the state courts would construe the Massachusetts law to allow presidential stand-ins.
The first step toward getting a state court to construe the law has now been achieved. If the Libertarian Party wins the case, it will help not only that party, but all unqualified parties which want to begin petitioning before they have nominated their presidential nominee. For example, a victory would help Americans Elect.
On December 15, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the state’s petition challenge system, at least as applied to the recall petition currently circulating against him, violates the U.S. Constitution. The recall petition needs 540,208 signatures, but not all signers must be registered voters. They must be eligible to register to vote.
The lawsuit says that many individuals are signing the petition twice, and because the state elections officials don’t plan to weed out duplicate signatures, the burden is on the Governor and his supporters to find the duplicate signatures and challenge them. The lawsuit also points out that the Governor and his supporters would only have ten days to do this work, and that the burden violates due process. Here is the 8-page complaint. The case is Friends of Scott Walker, and Scott Walker, v Wisconsin Government Accountability Board. It is filed in state circuit court in Waukesha County, no. 11-cv-04195.
