Currently the only state with a ballot-qualified Moderate Party is Rhode Island. However, on July 25, the Moderate Party of California filed with the Secretary of State to be a “political body”. This means it intends to try to qualify as a party in California, and elections officials will tally how many people register into it. It needs 103,004 registered voters by January 2, 2012.
Kyle Curtis has a long story about the Working Families Party of Oregon, including an interview with a party leader. See it here. The story contains a factual error; it seems to think the Reform Party was created in 1992. Ross Perot was an independent candidate in 1992. The Reform Party was founded in 1995.
Supporters of election-day registration in Maine have turned in signatures to force a referendum on whether Maine should keep election-day registration. The town clerks must finish validating the petition by August 9. See this story.
Maine has had election-day registration for several decades, but this year’s legislature repealed it. Supporters of the program then began a referendum petition campaign to put the question on the ballot. Assuming the petition has enough valid signatures, election-day registration will stay in effect until the voters vote on it in 2012. Thanks to BallotBoxNews for this news.
Joe Mathews has this somewhat tongue-in-cheek and humorous column about how California could achieve real political reform, on the August 2 Fox and Hounds blog. Thanks to Rob Richie for the link.
Elyria, Ohio, has partisan elections, and holds a Mayoral election in November 2011. The Ohio Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a contentious Ohio election law issue that has never been settled by the Ohio Supreme Court. The election law does not say that independent candidates must not have voted in a partisan primary that same year. It just says, in 3513.04, that they must not have run in a partisan primary that year.
Nevertheless, sometimes county election boards block independent candidates on the grounds that they voted in a partisan primary. Ohio registration forms do not ask voters to choose a party or independent status, so no one can look at any voter’s voter registration card and say he or she is a member of any particular party. However, Ohio elections officials do keep a record of which party’s primary any voter voted in, and Ohio uses that as a proxy for registration into a party.
The case is State ex rel Quinn v Lorain County Board of Elections, 2011-1124. The case was brought by Timothy Quinn, who is trying to be on the ballot for Mayor of Elyria this year. Although he voted in the Democratic primary this year, he says he didn’t vote for anyone for Mayor. Furthermore, he has been an independent candidate in the past, and he had voted in a partisan primary in those past years, and he was still allowed on the ballot in November as an independent. See this story.
