Americans Elect Petition Has Enough Valid Signatures in California

Posted on by December 19, 2011
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On December 19, Orange County, California finished checking the Americans Elect petition signatures from that county and reported the results to the California Secretary of State. There are now more than enough valid signatures on the petition, even though not all counties have yet reported their results.

Americans Elect is only the second party in California to qualify using the obscure 10% petition procedure. The only other group that ever did that petition in California was Henry Wallace’s Independent Progressive Party in 1947-1948. The 10% petition procedure has existed in California since 1937. Generally, new parties choose the easier 1% registration method, which has existed in the law since 1929.

The only other state in which a new party ever obtained a spot on the ballot by completing a 10% petition is Nevada, where the law required a petition of 10% of the last vote for U.S. House between the years 1893 and 1917. Parties that met the Nevada 10% at least once are the Socialist Party in 1904 and the Prohibition Party in 1916. After the Prohibition Party did it in 1916, the legislature listened to the party’s complaint about how difficult it had been, and lowered the requirement to 3%.

General Election Presidential Candidates in 2012 Need Support from 708,482 Voters to Get on All Ballots

Posted on by December 19, 2011
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Now that the Pennsylvania petition requirement for 2012 is known (see post immediately below), it is possible to know almost exactly that the national petition total for a presidential candidate to get on all 51 ballots in 2012 will be 708,482 signatures. This calculation involves using the easier method to get on the ballot in each state. The total isn’t quite exact yet and depends on estimates for Delaware and the District of Columbia. The number from Delaware is based on how many people are registered to vote as of December 31, 2011, which lies in the future. And the D.C. requirement depends on the number of registered voters as of July 1, 2012. But these registration totals can be estimated now.

The 708,482 figure is 6.2% higher than the 2008 total, which was 667,248.

Sometimes, the “easier” method in each state is somewhat ambiguous. For California, which has three methods, the easiest method is deemed to be the independent candidate petition, which requires 172,859 valid signatures. It seems apparent that it is easier to get 172,859 petition signatures than to get 103,004 registrations, and it is obviously easier to get 172,859 signatures than 1,030,040 signatures. For Delaware, the assumption is that it is easier to get 650 registrations than to get 6,500 signatures. For Ohio, even though five parties were placed on the ballot by the Secretary of State with no petition, the calculation assumes it is easier to get 5,000 signatures than to persuade the Secretary of State to recognize any more parties. For Vermont and Mississippi, the calculation assumes it is easier to provide a list of state party officers, than to obtain 1,000 signatures.

The press in the United States has for months been reporting that it takes 2,900,000 signatures to get on the ballot for President in all 51 jurisdictions. Reporters confuse the number of signatures that Americans Elect says it plans to collect, with the actual legal requirements. Americans Elect is not using the easier method in each state.

Just six states account for 61.6% of the entire national requirement. The six states are California, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, and Indiana. There is a possibility that North Carolina, which requires the second greatest number of signatures of any state, will improve its law in the 2012 legislative session in time to effect the 2012 election.

Ron Paul Now Leading in Iowa Republican Poll

Posted on by December 19, 2011
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Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa Republican poll shows Ron Paul leading for the first time. See this story. Public Policy Polling polls for the Iowa Republican caucus have now shown six different leaders during the period from August through this latest poll. The Iowa caucus is in two weeks and one day.

Ohio Greens are Only Minor Party to Submit Primary Petitions for a U.S. Senate Candidate

Posted on by December 19, 2011
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Ohio recognizes five parties besides the Democratic and Republican Parties. The only minor party member who filed in any primary for U.S. Senate is Joseph R. DeMare, who submitted 622 signatures to be listed on the Ohio Green Party primary. He will be the Green Party nominee if his petition has at least 500 valid signatures. The petition will be checked by mid-January 2012. The current U.S. Senator for that seat is Sherrod Brown, a Democrat.

Although the primary filing deadline for U.S. Senate has passed, the filing period for presidential primary candidates still has not passed. That deadline is December 30. It is somewhat likely that the Greens will be the only minor party with any nominees listed on their presidential primary ballot as well. Jill Stein and a delegation pledged to her are circulating a presidential primary petition. If the Stein petition succeeds, she will be the first person ever to run in a minor party presidential primary in Ohio.

The other qualified minor parties in Ohio are Americans Elect, Constitution, Libertarian, and Socialist. Primary petitions are difficult in Ohio, because no one can sign if that person voted in a Democratic or Republican primary in 2008, unless that voter had gone to the trouble of filling out a form changing affiliation during 2009.