The December 29 issue of the New York Times contains this letter, advocating that President Barack Obama appoint one or more Federal Election Commissioners who are not members of either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
As the letter explains, the law does not require three Democratic commissioners and three Republican commissioners. It only says no party may have more than three commissioners.
On December 21, a lower state court in Maine ruled that if election officials take longer than the time allowed to check petition signatures, then the petition must be deemed valid. The decision is from Kennebec Superior Court, and is called Webster v Dunlap, AP 09-55.
And, on December 23, the same court ruled in a related lawsuit that petitions are valid, even if the notary who notarized the petition sheets put down incorrect information about the notary’s own qualifications. That case is called Johnson v Dunlap, AP 09-56.
The result is that a referendum on taxes will be on the June 2010 ballot, unless an appeal reverses the decisions. See this story. Because the petition sponsors won both cases, and they only needed to win one of them, any appeal to remove the referendum would requiring reversing both decisions. However, there probably will be appeals, to the Maine Supreme Court.
The first decision appears to substantially weaken a very bad Maine precedent set in 2008, Dobson v Dunlap, which said that even though an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate submitted her petitions on time to the county clerks, she should not be on the ballot because the town clerks didn’t check her signatures in time. That case is reported at 576 F.Supp.2d 181. That decision opens, “There is no constitutional right to procrastinate. Laurie Dobson, an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, waited until the last minute to deliver her nomination petitions to the municipal registrars and when they failed to promptly certify all of her petitions, she failed to meet the statutory deadline to file 4,000 certified voter signatures with the Secretary of State.” In other words, according to the 2008 courts, even though the candidate followed the law and met the deadline, she should have realized that the towns would have a difficult time checking her signatures and she should have turned the signatures in earlier than the deadline.
The Northwest Valley News of Glendale, Arizona, has this story about the upcoming Green Party ballot access lawsuit, challenging the Arizona law that prevents the party from using out-of-state circulators and also the February 2010 petition deadline. The court hearing, as the article says, is January 11.
The November 1, 2009 Arizona registration tally shows: Republican 36.26%, Democratic 33.31%, Libertarian .80%, Green .14%, independents and others 29.49%.
Just prior to the November 2008 election, the percentages had been: Republican 37.44%, Democratic 34.22%, Libertarian .61%, Green .13%, independents and others 27.60%.
The actual numbers for the November 1, 2009 tally are: Republican 1,127,162; Democratic 1,035,576; Libertarian 24,842; Green 4,261; independents and others 916,856.
The December 28 issue of the Biloxi, Mississippi, Sun Herald, has this story about Brian Moore’s ongoing lawsuit to settle the exact deadline for candidates to file presidential elector paperwork to be on the ballot. The lawsuit is more than a year old, and is far from being settled. This is apparently the first time that any newspaper in Mississippi has mentioned the case.
