The West Virginia Constitution Party petition for U.S. Senate has enough valid signatures, so the party’s U.S. Senate nominee, Jeff Becker, will appear on the November ballot.
The New York Libertarian Party statewide petition also succeeded. Although someone filed a general challenge to that petition, the challenger did not subsequently follow through with specific objections.
On August 31, Citizen Outreach, a 501(c)(4) organization in Nevada that espouses conservative views, filed a lawsuit in state court in Nevada, arguing that the Secretary of State’s interpretation of the ballot access laws for new parties is incorrect, and that the actual requirements are far more difficult. The motivation for the lawsuit is to remove Jon Ashjian, the Tea Party nominee for U.S. Senate, from the November 2010 ballot. However, the lawsuit does not ask the Secretary of State to remove the Green Party nominee for Governor, David Scott Curtis, from that same ballot, and he got on the ballot the same way Ashjian did.
The lawsuit is Burdish v Miller, 10-oc-399, in Carson City.
Ever since 1999, Nevada has given newly-qualifying parties a choice of how to get on the ballot. They can either file a petition of 250 signatures for each of their statewide nominees in March, or they can file a petition signed by 1% of the last statewide vote (which now amounts to 9,083 signatures) in June. Thanks to Glenn Brown for this news.
The reason Nevada has two methods is that the state much prefers minor party and independent candidates to file early in the year. However, in 1986, the state’s April petition deadline for new parties was declared unconstitutional, in Libertarian Party of Nevada v Swackhamer. Also in 1992, the state’s June petition deadline for independent presidential candidates was declared unconstitutional, in Fulani v Lau. So Nevada legislators came up with the creative idea of having a very easy petition, with an early deadline; and the standard difficult petition, due later. They knew that virtually all minor parties would choose to use the easy petition with an early deadline, even though they had the choice to file later, but with many more signatures.
The lawsuit filed on August 31, 2010, misunderstands the Nevada law and says both petitions are required. Obviously, if that interpretation were upheld, that would have the effect of drastically changing Nevada ballot access laws for the worse. If the lawsuit’s theory of the law were correct, then Nevada would again have the characteristic of having a mandatory early deadline, which would be unconstitutional.
On September 1, the 9th circuit upheld the disparity in Hawaii’s petition requirements for the two different ways to get on the ballot for president. Nader v Cronin, 08-16444. Here is the 9-page decision.
In 2004, Hawaii required 677 signatures to qualify an entire new party, and 3,711 signatures to qualify an independent presidential candidate. Ralph Nader and Michael Peroutka each tried to qualify as independent presidential candidates. Even though each of them submitted more than 7,000 signatures, Hawaii elections officials invalidated over half of them. Hawaii tends to disqualify signatures if the signer failed to show either the last four digits of his or Social Security number, or the full birthday.
Nader and Peroutka then filed a federal case, alleging that there can’t be any state interest in requiring independent presidential candidates to submit approximately six times as many signatures as are needed for an entire new political party. But the 9th circuit upheld the law, in the face of this argument. The decision says that the presidential candidate of a newly-qualifying party in Hawaii has the burden of showing that he or she is the nominee, not only of the Hawaii branch of that party, but of the national party as well. The case has no evidence that it is burdensome for a presidential candidate to show that both his or her state party and the national party have nominated the candidate.
This decision shows that judges who uphold ballot access laws are not really worried about ballot-crowding. In Hawaii, and in most states, when an entire new party qualifies for the ballot, that has a much greater potential impact on adding names to the ballot than the petition for a single independent candidate does. It is obvious that if Hawaii can avoid ballot-crowding with a petition of 677 names for a new party, there can’t be any rational fear that it needs more signatures than that for independent presidential candidates. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news. There is some likelihood that the plaintiffs will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case. Under Norman v Reed, and Burdick v Takushi, ballot access laws that are discriminatory are subject to strict scrutiny, but the 9th circuit did not apply strict scrutiny in this lawsuit.
On September 1, the Farid Khavari independent gubernatorial campaign announced that Khavari’s running mate in the Florida race will be Darcy Richardson. See the campaign’s press release at IndependentPoliticalReport.
The campaign web page is here (www.khavariforgovernor.com). The ballot for the Florida gubernatorial race will include eight choices, but the Khavari-Richardson ticket probably has the strongest campaign, apart from the two major party tickets. Another independent candidate for Florida Governor is Daniel Imperato, who sought the Libertarian presidential nomination in 2008.
On August 31, all five ball0t-listed candidates for Governor of Maine debated each other. See this story. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for the link.
