On April 11, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party filed a lawsuit in state court, asking that their petitions for ballot access in 2012/2014 be ruled to have enough valid signatures. The case is Libertarian Party of Maryland et al v Maryland State Board of Elections, in Anne Arundel Circuit Court.

The complaint points out these flaws in the recent validation process: (1) the petition has a place for a signature and a printed name. If the signer used a middle name or initial in his or her printed name but not the signature, or vice versa, the signature was invalid; (2) if the signer used a different form of his or her first name in the signature line versus the printed line, the signature was invalid (for example, printing Margaret but signing Peggy); (3) if a signer signed twice and the first time was invalid, but the second attempt would have been valid, neither the first nor second attempt was considered valid; (4) if the circulator varied his or her name (as in points #1 or #2 above) the entire sheet was invalid; (5) the state changed the wording on the petition slightly during the petition drives, and sheets with the old wording were rejected; (6) and, as is the case for almost all petitions, sometimes signatures were invalidated even though they were clearly valid.

Last month, the NAACP sent this letter to Florida Governor Rick Scott. It politely asks him to submit recent legal changes (concerning voting for ex-felons) to the U.S. Justice Department. Earlier this year, the Governor and his cabinet changed procedures for ex-felons to register to vote. The Scott changes require an ex-felon to wait five years after release before asking permission to register to vote. Florida is covered by Section Five of the Voting Rights Act, so this change should have been submitted to the Justice Department. Scott has not responded to the letter, even though the NAACP had asked for a response by April 8. Although the NAACP has not said yet that it will sue, it seems likely that a lawsuit will be filed.

On April 4, the Oklahoma Senate made a small but interesting amendment to HB 1615, the bill that moves the non-presidential primary from July to June and also moves the petition deadline for a new party from May 1 to March 1. For 37 years, Oklahoma has required a party that wishes to petition for the ballot to notify the State Elections Board that it is about to start petitioning. The function of this law is to help the state enforce the law that says the petition must be completed within one year.

HB 1615, as passed by the House, says that a party that wants to begin to petition cannot file this notice later than December 31 of the year before the election. However, the Senate amended the bill, to say that the notice may be given as late as February 29 of the election year. Of course, the petition is due the next day, so the consequences of the change are not very great. But it is interesting that there was awareness in the Senate that there are constitutional problems with a law that says it is legally impossible for a party to get on the ballot if it didn’t notify the state during the year before the election.

Because the Senate amended HB 1615, is must return to the House. In theory, the House could amend the bill again, to require a smaller number of signatures for a new party. The bill that was introduced to lower the number of signatures has not made any headway in the Senate, so any relief from the very high number of signatures could most easily be made with an amendment to HB 1615 in the House.