James Traficant, a former Democratic member of Congress from Ohio, attempted to run this year as an independent candidate for U.S. House in Ohio’s 17th district.  However, he was told that he needed 2,199 valid signatures, and after his petition was checked, he was told that he only had 2092 valid signatures.

Now elections officials have acknowledged that their earlier determination of how many signatures were required was incorrect.  See this story.  Ohio requires independent candidates for district office to submit a petition of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote within that district.  Ohio would make less work for itself if the law said such a candidate needs a petition of 1% of the vote cast for the particular office the candidate is running for.  That would be easier, because anyone could easily know the vote cast for that particular office, just by looking at the official election returns from that past election.  By making the formula 1% of the vote for governor in the last election, that forces elections officials to do a calculation of how many votes for Governor were cast in a particular district, something that is not apparent from the election returns.  Thanks to Carter Momberger for the link.  It appears that even though elections officials acknowledge error, the new calculation is only 29 signatures fewer than than the original calculation, so Traficante probably still doesn’t have enough valid signatures.

The newspaper story in incorrect when it says an independent candidate for district office needs signatures from each county in the district.

The Michigan Tea Party (the ballot-qualified party), which most observers feel is an insincere party artificially created by Democrats, recently nominated 23 candidates.  But two of them will not appear on the ballot because they are under age 21.  The Michigan Constitution requires legislators to be age 21 or older.  See this story.

One of the candidates who is being removed from the ballot was running in the 13th State Senate district.  This is one of the most closely-balanced State Senate districts in Michigan.  Last time voters chose a State Senator in this district, in 2006, the vote for the two major parties had been:  Republican 57,204; Democratic 56,484.  Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

Ohio elects its judges in partisan elections, but there are no party labels on the general election ballot for candidates for judge.  On July 28, some Ohio judges, and others, filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the state must print party labels on general election ballots.  Here is the complaint.  The case is Ohio Council of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees v Brunner, 1:10-cv-504, southern district.

Ohio uses partisan primaries to determine who each party nominates for judge, so the partisan affiliation of candidates for judge is obvious at the primary elections.  It is only the general election at which party labels are not present.  Ohio is the only state with a system with that characteristic.  Michigan is somewhat similar.  In Michigan, party conventions nominate candidates for State Supreme Court Justice, and then the voters elect them on a November ballot which also lacks party labels.

The lawsuit also attacks rules that make it impossible for candidates for judge to identify their party identification “after the day of the primary.”