According to this story, a lower state court in Saguache County, Colorado, is mulling over holding officials of Elections System & Software in contempt of court. The officials had been ordered to appear for a deposition, but they did not appear. ES&S is a company that makes vote-counting machines. The deposition was part of a lawsuit (Marks v Myers) filed by a citizen against Saguache County elections officials, concerning irregularities in the vote count in a recent local election.
According to this story, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler wants the legislature to provide that when a write-in voter forgets, or doesn’t know, to “X” the box next to the name just written in, that vote should be invalid. Ironically, just this month, California changed its policy in the opposite direction, to say that these type of write-ins are valid.
Gessler has been a terrible disappointment for voting rights advocates. Before he was Secretary of State, he was an attorney in private practice. He represented Ralph Nader in Nader’s winning 2004 ballot access lawsuit. In a separate lawsuit, Gessler also represented Walt Brown, the Socialist Party presidential nominee in 2004, and won a ballot access case for Brown as well. The case Gessler won for Walt Brown concerned the deadline for qualifying as an independent or minor party nominee, which was on July 4 in 2004. After Gessler won the case, the legislature moved the deadline to the first week in June, which gives Colorado the nation’s second-earliest qualifying deadline in the nation for independent presidential candidates. Even though Gessler fully understands the harm done by a too-early deadline, he has failed to respond to messages suggesting that he ask the legislature to make that deadline later. Thanks to Nancy Hanks for the link.
According to this story, on August 10, former Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner predicted on August 10 that the Ohio Libertarian Party will win its new ballot access lawsuit, which had been filed August 9. Brunner was Secretary of State between 2006 and 2010. She said if the party wins the lawsuit, the Secretary of State will then be forced to pay attorneys’ fees, which will come out of the Secretary of State’s budget.
The author of the story, Bob Fitrakis, was the Green Party candidate for Governor of Ohio in 2006. He polled 40,965 votes, even though the state would not print a party label on the ballot next to his name, because he used the independent candidate procedure. He qualified for the 2006 ballot before the Ohio law was declared unconstitutional in September 2006.
The Amsterdam News of August 7 has Lenora Fulani’s warm and personal remembrance of Fred Newman. The Amsterdam News is a New York city publication. Thanks to Sarah Lyons for the link.
The Michigan Republican Party will decide on Saturday, August 13, whether to use a presidential primary or a caucus to choose delegates to the 2012 national convention. See this story. If the Republican Party decides on a caucus, it is likely the legislature, which reconvenes in September, will eliminate the presidential primary for 2012, since the Democratic Party has already decided to use a caucus in 2012. If the Republican Party chooses a presidential primary for 2012, the legislature will probably pass a bill setting the date that the Republican Party prefers. The article seems to feel that the Republicans will opt for a primary to be held February 28, which would violate national Republican Party rules. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Michigan has other ballot-qualified parties: Americans Elect, Constitution (called U.S. Taxpayers Party in that state), Green, Libertarian, and Natural Law. However, Michigan election law doesn’t give those parties their own presidential primary.
