The Nation magazine carries this article in its September 27 issue, calling on South Carolina Democrats to support Tom Clements for the U.S. Senate. Clements is the Green Party nominee, and the only person on the November ballot for U.S. Senate, other than Democratic nominee Alvin Greene and incumbent Republican Jim DeMint.
KTVK-3, a television station in Phoenix, will host and broadcast a U.S. Senate debate on September 26. It runs between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. without commercial break. It will also be simulcast in Tucson on KTTU, Channel 18. All four ballot-listed candidates will participate. They are John McCain for the Republican Party, Rodney Glassman for the Democratic Party, David F. Nolan for the Libertarian Party, and Jerry Joslyn for the Green Party. Joslyn is one of the Green Party nominees who is actually backed by the Arizona Green Party, not one of the “outsider” Green nominees whom the party is trying to keep off the November ballot.
This is expected to be the only Arizona U.S. Senate general election debate this year.
On September 9, the North Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Libertarian Party of North Carolina v State Board of Elections, the case that challenges many North Carolina election laws that are hostile to minor parties. The hearing seemed to go well for the plaintiffs, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. Five of the seven justices asked questions. The questions showed that the judges are very familiar with the details of the case.
On Justice asked the attorney for the state whether ballot access is a fundamental right. The attorney for the state replied that voting is a fundamental right. The justice responded, saying that wasn’t his question, and he wanted the attorney for the state to respond to whether ballot access is a fundamental right. The attorney for the state then agreed that it is a fundamental right.
The hearing was an hour long. Approximately 30 people were in the audience. The justices were aware of the history of North Carolina’s ballot access requirements for new and minor parties. They knew that the requirement had been exactly 10,000 signatures between 1929 and 1981. They knew that it had been lowered to 5,000 signatures in 1981, with the proviso that people who signed a minor party petition had their voter registration automatically converted to show them members of the party whose petition they had signed (that law had been struck down in federal court in 1982 in a lawsuit filed by the Socialist Workers Party). The justices knew that the legislature then imposed the current petition requirement, 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, which now equals 85,379 valid signatures.
The state’s biggest argument has always been that having as many as three minor parties on the ballot, which occurred in 1996, caused crowded ballots, because North Carolina elects 10 statewide state offices in presidential years. With that many offices on the ballot, and some races having as many as five candidates on the ballot, some counties had to print the ballot on several cards instead of just one card, and that caused voters to take longer in the voting booth. But the technology in those counties in 1996 no longer is used in North Carolina, and the justices knew that also. A decision will probably be issued in the next four months.
On September 8, Ralph Nader spoke in Oklahoma City about Oklahoma’s ballot access law. See this story. The audience included 360 people. Oklahoma is the only state in which no one has ever been allowed to vote for Nader. Although he never appeared on the ballot in Georgia, Indiana, and North Carolina as well, at least those three states tallied write-ins for him. Oklahoma bans write-ins.
On September 8, the West Virginia State Supreme Court heard arguments in Shepherdstown Observer v Maghan, no. 35446. The issue is whether the names and addresses of people who sign petitions should be released to the public. See this story.
