Atlanta Journal-Constitution Article on Americans Elect Petition Drive in Georgia

Posted on by October 5, 2011
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this story about Americans Elect, which is currently circulating a petition to qualify itself as a party for statewide office in Georgia. The article says Americans Elect has 20 petitioners working in that state.

No statewide petition in Georgia has succeeded since 2000, when Pat Buchanan completed an independent candidate petition. Statewide minor party and independent candidate petitions need 1% of the number of registered voters. The Green Party, the Natural Law Party, and the Constitution Party, never appeared on a statewide ballot in Georgia. Georgia is one of four states in which Ralph Nader never appeared on the ballot. The others are Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Indiana.

The Journal-Constitution story says Americans Elect needs 45,707 valid signatures, but actually they need 57,956. UPDATE: the Georgia Secretary of State’s office says the requirement is 1% of the number of active registered voters, and that the number of inactive registered voters is immaterial. Therefore, the requirement is 50,334 valid signatures.

Federal Election Commission Needs More Time to Respond to Ohio Socialist Party Debate Lawsuit

Posted on by October 5, 2011
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Last year, a consortium of Ohio newspapers sponsored a general election U.S. Senate debate and invited only the Democratic and Republican Party nominees into that debate. The Socialist Party nominee, Dan La Botz, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, because the sponsors had not set any objective standards on who could qualify for that debate. But the FEC took no action, so early this year La Botz sued the FEC.

Here is the 34-page La Botz brief, which was filed on September 23. The FEC asked for more time to respond, and the court granted the request. The FEC brief is now due October 11. This is an interesting lawsuit. Generally, debate sponsors are sophisticated enough to set objective criteria before issuing invitations to the debate. This is often a requirement that a candidate poll at some particular level of support. But the Ohio debate sponsors did not do that; they just said they were only inviting the two candidates who “obviously” had the most support. Furthermore, even if that could possibly be considered an “objective” criteria, the debate sponsors did not make this criteria public, before they set up the debate.

Tennessee Photo ID Law Prevents 96-Year-Old from Voting at the Polls

Posted on by October 5, 2011
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The Tennessee legislature passed a law this year, requiring voters at the polls to show a government photo-ID. This newspaper story says that Hamilton County officials won’t give 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper a state photo ID. This, despite the fact that she visited the office that is responsible for handing out state ID cards. She had a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, a voter registration card, a birth certificate, and a photo ID issued by the Chattanooga police, but none of that was good enough.

County elections officials are telling her to just vote by absentee ballot, but she says she will miss voting at the polls.

West Virginia Secretary of State Web Page Has Election Returns

Posted on by October 4, 2011
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The West Virginia Secretary of State’s web page carries the unofficial votes for Governor in the October 4 special election. Here is the link.

So far, the percentages are: Democratic 50.23%, Republican 46.40%, Mountain 1.90%, independent .97%, American Third Position .35%, write-ins .14%. UPDATE: at 11:15 pm, the newer percentages are Democratic 49.37%, Republican 47.17%, Mountain 2.01%, independent .94%, American Third Position .37%, write-in .14%.

The 2011 special election is the fourth gubernatorial election at which the Mountain Party (West Virginia’s Green Party affilate) has participated. The party’s earlier gubernatorial totals have been: 2000 1.61%; 2004 2.48%; 2008 4.44%.

Working Families Party Helps Increase Size of Wall Street Protest

Posted on by October 4, 2011
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The Washington Post of October 4 has this story about the Wall Street Protest. If one reads down to the paragraph headed “Working Together”, one finds that Dan Cantor, head of the New York Working Families Party, says that labor and other groups associated with the Working Families Party will participate in the protest on Wednesday, October 5.