The Chicago Tribune has this editorial, urging readers to sign the petition for Forrest Claypool, independent candidate for Cook County Assessor. The editorial even explains to readers how to obtain access to a Claypool petition. Thanks to Jeff Trigg for the link.
On June 15, the legal counsel for the Pennsylvania state agency that controls state parks agreed that small groups of petition circulators may work in state parks without first asking for permission. See this ACLU press release, which has links to the correspondence between the ACLU and the state agency. Those who are interested in having the legal citations that the ACLU cited may wish to print out copies of the correspondence. None of the four letters (two from each side) are more than a page or so.
The Green Party contacted the ACLU after its petitioners were stopped while in Point State Park, located in Pittsburgh.
On June 11, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford vetoed HB 3746, which made ballot access more difficult for independent candidates. On June 16, the House then entertained a vote to override his veto. However, the attempt to override the veto failed. The vote was 60-43, but it takes a two-thirds vote to override a veto in South Carolina, as in most states.
HB 3746 required independent candidate petitions to be notarized. It said that newly-registered voters could not sign the petition. It required independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in early June, even though the petition deadline itself (which the bill wasn’t changing) is in mid-July. Governor Sanford is a Republican and both houses of the legislature have Republican majorities.
The June 16 issue of the New York Times has this story, about the possible danger to the Utah Democratic Party, in its upcoming June 22 primary. Utah Democrats have an open primary. Any registered voter may vote in that primary. There is some reason to believe that opponents of the Democratic Party plan to vote in the party’s primary, and vote for the perceived weaker candidate, to make it more likely that the Democrats will lose the general election for U.S. House, 2nd district.
The Arizona Green Party is ballot-qualified and nominates by primary. Arizona requires petitions for candidates to get on the primary ballot of their own party. The only person who submitted a petition to be on the Green Party primary ballot for Governor, Larry Gist, seems assured of being the party’s nominee, because a challenge to his petition has been withdrawn. See this story. The challenge had been filed by a Democrat, but the challenge has been dropped because it appears Gist’s petition has enough valid signatures. Only independent voters, and registered Greens, were eligible to sign.
Activists in the Green Party do not know Gist, and were not involved in helping him get himself on the party’s primary ballot. He needed 1,231 signatures, and submitted 2,980.
