On November 1, Americans Elect submitted its petition to be on the Arkansas ballot in 2012, for President only. Arkansas requires 1,000 signatures for parties that only want to be on the ballot for President, and 10,000 for parties that want ballot status for all office. Americans Elect turned in 2,900 signatures.
On November 1, the Ohio Secretary of State issued a directive, putting the Americans Elect, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, and Socialist Parties on the 2012 ballot. The directive isn’t posted on the Secretary of State’s web page yet, but can be seen here. This post has been updated.
On October 31, the North Dakota Libertarian Party filed this 12-page rehearing request in Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger, 10-3212. The issue in the lawsuit is whether a state may require a small qualified party to attract as much as 15% of the primary voters to choose that party’s primary ballot, if it wants to have nominees for the legislature on the November ballot.
One of the peculiar aspects of the North Dakota primary vote test requirement is that it is so much harsher for legislative candidates, than candidates for Congress or statewide state office. The primary vote test for statewide office is 300 votes, which means the statewide candidates need an average of about 6 voters within each legislative district to choose the minor party’s primary ballot. But if that same party wants to have a legislative candidate on the ballot in November, the number of voters within that legislative district to choose that party’s primary ballot can be as high as 130 voters, i.e., over twenty times as high as the test for statewide candidates.
The Reno Gazette-Journal has this lengthy, detailed story about how the Nevada Republican caucus of February 4, 2012, will be run. Participants must have been registered in the Republican Party no later than mid-January 2012. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for the link.
Ever since last year, the federal government has been suing New York state over its non-compliance with the 2009 law that requires states to mail overseas absentee ballots at least 45 days before any federal election or any primary for federal office. The case is U.S.A. v State of New York, 10-cv-1214, northern district. On October 31, the state again asked the judge to postpone deciding the case until the state legislature acts to move the September 2012 primary to an earlier month. See this story.
States with mid-September primaries can’t comply with the federal law, so almost all states have now eliminated such late primaries. As the story says, the legislature hasn’t acted yet because the Assembly wants the primary in June and the State Senate wants it in August. This issue has nothing to do with New York’s presidential primary, which has a separate election date, April 24, 2012.
