East County Magazine has published this Op-Ed about California’s Proposition 14, the top-two ballot measure. The op-ed is by Ann Menasche, the Green Party candidate for Secretary of State of California. East County Magazine is the most widely-read news source in the portion of San Diego County that is east of Interstate-15.
East County Magazine has published this Op-Ed about California’s Proposition 14, the top-two ballot measure. The op-ed is by Ann Menasche, the Green Party candidate for Secretary of State of California. East County Magazine is the most widely-read news source in the portion of San Diego County that is east of Interstate-15.
On April 1, the California Secretary of State’s office released the list of candidates in the June 8, 2010 primary, who are running for Congress and state office. Here is the list.
On March 31, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that Robert Owens should be on the Constitution Party’s primary ballot for Attorney General. Owens needed 500 valid signatures. The various counties checked his petitions and sent the results into the Secretary of State, who tallied the results and said he only had 481 valid signatures. Here is the 15-page decision, State ex rel Owens v Brunner, 2010-1374.
The Court found that Franklin County (which contains Columbus) did not follow the Secretary of State’s instructions, and improperly invalidated far too many of Owens’ signatures. Ohio petitions forms, unfortunately, do not include a space for the signer to print his or her name. Many people have illegible cursive signatures. To remedy this, Ohio petition forms ask signers to print their address. Elections officials are supposed to use the address to identify signers whose cursive signatures can’t be read. But Franklin County did not do that.
Ohio elections officials, for at least 20 years, have done a poor job of checking signatures on petitions. Typically, petitions in Ohio need twice as many signatures as the legal requirement, to be declared valid. This decision is of great importance, far beyond just the specific outcome that Robert Owens will now be on the Constitution Party’s primary ballot. The vote was 6-1. The dissenter said that because absentee voting has already started, on ballots that omit Owens, therefore the decision is a mistake. But both the majority and the dissenter agreed that the Ohio legislature should provide for an earlier petition deadline, to give election officials more time to do a good job of checking petitions. Thanks to Robert Owens for this news.
Filing has now closed for Missouri primaries, which are held on August 3 this year. In the U.S. House race, 9th district, two Republicans filed, and two Libertarians, but no Democrats and no one from the Constitution Party. See this story.
To see the complete candidate list, see the Missouri Secretary of State’s web page here. There are two statewide races in Missouri this year. The two qualified minor parties, Libertarian and Constitution, will each have a U.S. Senate nominee. In the other statewide race, for Auditor, there will be a Libertarian, but no one from the Constitution Party. The Libertarian Party must poll 2% in one of the two statewide races or it will lose its qualified status. The Constitution Party need not worry about polling 2% for a statewide race in 2010, because it polled 2% for one of the statewide races in 2008, and in Missouri, when a party passes the vote test, it remains on for the next two elections.
The Green Party, which is not ballot-qualified, is petitioning for party status this year. That petition needs 10,000 signatures and is due in late July. If the petition drive succeeds, the Green Party will be able to nominate by convention for any partisan race. In Missouri, the name of the Green Party is “Progressive Party.”
