Here is a link to an interesting article, “Politics for Professionals Only: Ballot Measures, Campaign Finance ‘Reform’, and the First Amendment”, by Dick Carpenter, Jeffrey Milyo, and John K. Ross. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
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The York, Pennsylvania Daily Record has this story, reporting that seven write-in candidates were elected at the November 3, 2009 election, even though there were also candidates running in those elections who were listed on the ballot.
The November 18 issue of the Oakland Tribune, the leading newspaper of California’s East Bay region, has this op-ed calling on California election officials to let Oakland and Berkeley implement Instant Runoff Voting for their own city elections. Voters in both cities voted for IRV years ago, but the Secretary of State has delayed approving vote-counting machines that can handle IRV.
The November 18 issue of the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch has this op-ed, drawing attention to the ballot access improvement bill pending in the Ohio legislature. The timing is good, because that bill, HB 260, is expected to receive a vote in the Ohio House on November 18.
HB 260 is several hundred pages long, and deals with many aspects of election law. Until this op-ed was published, the Ohio newspapers had not even bothered to mention the ballot access improvements contained in that bill.
The op-ed is authored by Law Professor Mark Brown, who in the last few years has become one of the leading ballot access attorneys in the nation. He is currently representing minor parties in pending lawsuits in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania.
On November 5, the city of Central Falls, Rhode Island, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, to overturn the U.S. District Court opinion in Fontes v City of Central Falls. The U.S. District Court, on October 8, had struck down a city ordinance that says if a voter signs for one candidate, and later signs for another candidate for the same office, the signature that counts is the one that was submitted first. The case in the 1st Circuit is Fontes v City of Central Falls, 09-2516.
Ironically, Rhode Island election laws, like the election laws of most states, have no prohibition on a voter signing for two different candidates for the same office. In other words, the city of Central Falls imposed a ballot access restriction that does not exist in state law in that state. This particular lawsuit had arisen when Hipolito Fontes had gone door-to-door to get the needed 200 valid signatures to run for Mayor in a non-partisan election. Campaigners for the incumbent Mayor, who was the only other candidate, followed Fontes and asked the same voters to sign the Mayor’s petition as well. Because enough voters signed both petitions, and because the Mayor turned his petition in first, Fontes only had 197 valid signatures and would not have been on the ballot except for the U.S. District Court’s order, putting him on the ballot. Fontes lost the election, receiving 426 votes; the incumbent received 1,495 votes.