Arkansas Libertarian Party Soon Will Start Petition to Qualify as a Party for 2012

Posted on by March 14, 2011
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The Arkansas Libertarian Party will launch a petition drive in April to qualify for the 2012 ballot as a full-fledged party. The party has virtually met its goal of raising $30,000 to pay for the petition drive, which needs 10,000 valid signatures, to be collected in any three months of the party’s own choosing.

Arkansas is the only state in which the Libertarian Party has never placed any nominees on the ballot for partisan office other than President. Arkansas has far easier procedures for parties to get on the ballot for President only, and the party has always used the president-only procedures in the past.

The Green Party of Arkansas is currently in court against Arkansas, over the law on how a party retains its place on the ballot. The law requires all parties to poll 3% for the office at the top of the ballot (President in presidential years, Governor in gubernatorial years). The case is in the 8th circuit.

Egypt Government Plans to Ease Ballot Access for Political Parties

Posted on by March 13, 2011
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Egyptian voters are expected to vote in favor of a proposal next week to liberalize ballot access for presidential candidates. Another reform proposal is expected to be announced after the referendum. It would ease ballot access for all political parties, for all office. See this story. Apparently the proposal will permit any party on the ballot that requests to be on. An official commented that this would lead to a proliferation of parties, but that eventually people would only be interested in the larger parties. Thanks to Ken Krawchuk for this news.

California Bill to Make it More Difficult for a New Party to Get on the Ballot has Hearing March 15

Posted on by March 13, 2011
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On March 15, at 1:30 pm, in room 3191, the California Senate Elections Committee will hear SB 205. This bill makes it illegal for anyone to pay anyone else to register voters, if the payment is made on a per-registration card basis. The bill is authored by Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), chairman of the Elections Committee.

The only feasible way for a group to become a qualified party in California is to persuade 103,004 voters to change their voter registration, so that the record lists them as members of that new party (the 103,004 figure is 1% of the number of voters who voted in November 2010). No party has used this method for getting on the ballot in the last 50 years without paying canvassers to get out on the street and persuade voters to change their registration. Experience shows that it is necessary to pay these canvassers on a per-registration basis. SB 205 provides that if the payment is made “willfully”, the person who pays must not only be fined, but sent to prison for six months.

The Senate Elections Committee will also hear SB 168 by Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) to make it illegal to pay anyone “directly or indirectly” to gather signatures on an initiative, referendum, or recall petition on a per-signature basis.

District of Columbia Officials Filed an Incomplete Certificate of Ascertainment in 2008

Posted on by March 12, 2011
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A federal law requires the Governor of each state, and the Mayor of Washington, D.C., to file a certificate of ascertainment with the U.S. Archives, after each presidential election. The law, section 6 of Title 3 of the U.S. Code, requires that this certificate contain the name of each candidate for presidential elector, and how many popular votes he or she received.

Here is page two of the Certificate of Ascertainment filed by the Mayor of Washington, D.C., after the 2008 presidential election. In violation of the law, it fails to list three legally-qualified candidates for presidential elector. They were J. Bradley Jansen, Rob Kampia, and Stacie Rumenap. They had filed as official write-in candidates for presidential elector, pledged to vote for Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr if they were elected to the electoral college. The District of Columbia Board of Elections accepted their filing. But, the District’s certification fails to list them.

The District failed to list them, because if it had listed them, it would have been obliged to say how many votes they received. Since the Board of Elections never counted their votes, the certificate conveniently pretends that they were not legally-qualified candidates, and fails to mention them. The federal law says the certificate shall contain “the number of votes given or cast for each person” running for presidential elector.