Professor Rick Hasen, a prominent professor of law, a specialist in election law, and a California Democrat, has published this criticism of Americans Elect at Politico. His three main points are: (1) Americans Elect says its voters will choose a presidential nominee on the internet, but that has two drawbacks: (a) the technology is not reliable; (b) not all U.S. voters have access, or are accustomed to using, the internet; (2) Americans Elect won’t divulge the names of many of the people who are paying for the party’s ballot access petitions and its other expenses; (3) Americans Elect “has put rules in place to give an unelected committee within the group the right to veto a ticket that is not ‘balanced’.”

Political science professor Darry A. Sragow, also a California Democrat, has written this response to the Politico editor, disputing Hasen’s points. However, he does not attempt a detailed rebuttal, because Politico wouldn’t let him post his own full op-ed, and limited him to a short letter.

Hasen has a link to Americans Elect’s bylaws, which is fair of him, and which demonstrates good journalism. However, Hasen’s criticism of Americans Elect on point (3) gives the impression that Americans Elect’s leaders can override the choice of the voters in the Americans Elect presidential primary. Americans Elect bylaw 8.0 is titled “Balanced Ticket Obligation.” It says that if the winner of the Americans Elect presidential primary is a Republican, and he or she chooses a Democratic vice-presidential running mate, then that ticket is “deemed to be balanced.” For example, if Ron Paul won the Americans Elect presidential primary, and Paul chose a Democratic running mate, then no officers of Americans Elect may squelch that choice. But if Ron Paul won the Americans Elect primary and he chose an independent or a member of a minor party, then Americans Elect officers would have the authority to rule the ticket “unbalanced.”

One of the goals of the founders of Americans Elect is to elect a President and Vice-President who can work with both major parties. Americans Elect feels one way to realize that goal is to insist that the nominees be of different major parties. Americans Elect didn’t want to exclude an independent or minor party member from receiving its nomination, but because an independent candidate may have any particular ideology, Americans Elect leaders wrote Bylaw 8.0 as a device to safeguard its goal of a diverse ticket. It is not fair to use the existence of Bylaw 8.0 to then generalize that Americans Elect leaders can in general override the choice of the voters in the presidential primary. If the voters in the primary choose Ron Paul for President and Dennis Kucinich becomes his running mate, this ticket probably would not make the founders of Americans Elect happy, but they could do nothing to veto that choice.

On November 11, the Michigan Secretary of State released the names of candidates who will be on the February 28, 2012 presidential primary ballots. Here is the Republican list, which includes eleven candidates. The link also includes the Democratic list. The Republican list includes Buddy Roemer and Fred Karger, two candidates who names have not been included on the Florida Republican presidential primary ballot. The Michigan Republican Party compiled the list.

The Michigan Democratic presidential primary ballot just lists President Obama. Michigan does not give a presidential primary to any of the smaller qualified parties.

Anyone not on today’s list may still get on the presidential primary ballot by petition. To get on the Republican presidential primary, 10,244 signatures are needed (one-half of 1% of the November 2008 Republican presidential vote). To get on the Democratic ballot, the petition must include 14,000 signatures. Any registered voter may sign. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

After the 2010 census, the Illinois legislature drew new boundaries for U.S. House and legislative districts. The Democratic Party controls both houses of the legislature and holds the Governor’s chair, so the plan, not surprisingly, was drawn to maximize advantages for Democrats. The Illinois League of Women Voters then filed a lawsuit, alleging that the First Amendment bars using partisan considerations when redistricting is carried out. The case, League of Women Voters v Quinn, lost on October 28 in a 3-judge U.S. District Court. Here is the 9-page opinion. The case only deals with legislative redistricting, not U.S. House redistricting.

Now the League is considering whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court several times has rejected challenges to gerrymandering, but those past decisions were based on the 14th amendment. The League’s case instead is based on the First Amendment. Here is the League’s brief in U.S. District Court, which tried to persuade the U.S. District Court to focus on Justice Anthony Kennedy’s concurrence in Vieth v Jubelirer, in which Kennedy hinted that while he would not invalidate Pennsylvania’s gerrymander in that case, that the First Amendment might someday compel a finding that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

The 3-judge U.S. District Court in Illinois did not even discuss Vieth, except in the second-to-last paragraph of the opinion.