Arizona HB 2441, to require presidential candidates to submit proof of meeting the constitutional qualifications when they file to be on the ballot, appears dead. Although it passed its first committee hurdle in January, it has not made any progress since. Here is a link to the bill.
On March 27, an independent candidate for Governor of Utah, Farley Anderson, filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court over whether his petition is valid or not.
Utah county officials check petition signatures. Salt Lake County elections officials determined that Anderson had filed 130 valid electronic signatures. Other counties certified that he had 960 valid paper signatures. Thus, the counties collectively agreed that he had 1,090 valid signatures. The law requires 1,000 valid signatures, so Anderson had enough, in the opinion of the counties. But the Lieutenant Governor’s office, which handles elections for the state, will not recognize the validity of the electronic signatures. Farley’s lawsuit is Anderson v Lieutenant Governor, 20100237.
The electronic signatures were obtained by signers visiting a web page, www.utahlive.us. See it here. Signers had to sign under penalty of perjury that they were who they said they were. They also had to submit the last four digits of their Utah drivers license or their Utah state ID.
On April 1, the Arizona House Judiciary passed SB 1024 unanimously. The bill has also passed the Senate. It removes the names of candidates for presidential elector from the November ballot, and adds the names of vice-presidential candidates to the November ballot. Under current law, vice-presidential candidates’ names are not listed on the ballot, but candidates for elector are. Because Arizona has 10 electoral votes, it takes quite a bit of ballot space to list the electors. For example, in 2008, the November ballot listed 50 candidates for presidential elector.
If the Arizona bill is signed into law, the only states that will still print the names of presidential electors on their ballots will be Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, and Idaho.
It is always odd when a state like Oklahoma claims it can’t print the names of minor party or independent candidates for president on the ballot because otherwise the ballot will be too crowded, and yet that same state prints the names of candidates for presidential elector on the ballot.
On April 2, the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County filed a federal lawsuit against certain California election laws that don’t permit petition circulators to work outside their home district or county. The case is filed in the Central District, in Los Angeles. Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County v Bowen, case number not yet assigned. The court won’t receive the paperwork until April 5. UPDATE: the case number is 2:10-cv-02488-PSG. It was assigned to Judge Philip S. Gutierrez.
The lawsuit was filed by the same law firm that won a 9th circuit ruling in 2008 against Arizona. That case, Nader v Brewer, struck down Arizona laws that did not permit out-of-state circulators to work in Arizona. California, like Arizona, is in the 9th circuit.
The Hawaii Green Party is now a ballot-qualified party. The state has already approved the party’s petition, which required 692 valid signatures. The party will now be given its own primary, and anyone can get on the party’s primary ballot with either 25 or 15 signatures, depending on which office. Any registered voter may sign.
The only other ballot-qualified parties in Hawaii this year, so far, are the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties. The Free Energy Party was also petitioning for party status and it is not known if that party’s petition was successful. The deadline was April 1.
