North Carolina First Party Has 86,000 Signatures

Posted on by May 16, 2010
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The Myrtle Beach, South Carolina newspaper, The Sun News, has this story in its May 16 edition about the North Carolina First Party. The petition deadline is May 17, and the party needs 85,379 valid signatures. Even though the story says the party has 120 petitioners, the story also says the party only has 86,000 signatures, which will not be enough unless there is a super-human push this weekend.

However, under a State Board of Elections ruling issued a few years ago for the Libertarian Party, the signatures can be supplemented and turned in later this year, or even next year, and they will count for 2012. Also, it is very likely the party could win a lawsuit against the May 17 petition deadline. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mandel v Bradley, in 1977, that early petition deadlines are unconstitutional when virtually no group or candidate ever meets the requirement. No statewide independent except Ross Perot, and no party except the Libertarian and Reform Parties, has ever met the 2% North Carolina statewide petition requirement, and that requirement has existed since 1983. There is no important reason for the deadline to be in May, because North Carolina doesn’t give a primary to new parties anyway. The independent candidate petition deadline is June 10 and there is no practical reason why the two deadlines should differ.

North Carolina Ballot Access Hearing This Week

Posted on by May 16, 2010
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On May 20, Thursday, at 2:30 pm, a North Carolina Superior Court will hear oral arguments in Brody v North Carolina State Board of Elections, 10cvs-3216. This is a case that raises an issue that has apparently never before been argued. It concerns whether an independent candidate should be required to submit a hefty petition for ballot access, in addition to a filing fee, if the independent candidate already proved he or she has a modicum of voter support based on results in the last election.

Mark Brody qualified for the November 2008 ballot as an independent candidate for the State House. He polled 30%. He is running for the same seat again this year. He is willing to pay the filing fee, but he is not willing to obtain 2,367 valid signatures from within his district, because he argues that a petition for him is redundant, because of his 9,184 votes in the November 2008 election.

All states have procedures for an independent candidate to get on the general election ballot for any partisan office (although two states, Washington and Hawaii, require independent candidates for most partisan offices to run in the first round and do well there first). No state except Georgia lets an independent candidate’s showing in one election count toward the independent getting on in a following election for the same office. Georgia says if an independent candidate wins, he or she is on the ballot automatically in the next election, but the candidate must pay the filing fee in both elections.

For those who may wish to attend the hearing, it is in room 6310 of the Mecklenburg County Courthouse in Charlotte. The lawsuit also challenges another North Carolina election law, which says that an independent candidate may not be identified on the November ballot as an independent candidate. Instead, he or she must have the label “Unaffiliated.” Similar lawsuits won in the Massachusetts Supreme Court and the Minnesota Supreme Court in the past.

Senator Bennett May Run for Re-Election as an Independent

Posted on by May 16, 2010
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U.S. Senator Robert Bennett of Utah has been running for re-election this year. However, no one may get on a primary ballot in that state if the person does not show 35% support at a party endorsements convention. Bennett failed to get that much support at last week’s Republican convention, and thus he cannot get on the June 22 primary ballot.

On May 16, CNN’s “State of the Union” public affairs TV show interviewed Bennett. Hostess Candy Crowley asked him, “When can we call you up and get an answer to the question of whether you’re going to run as an independent?” Bennett’s answer was, “As soon as I make up my mind, you will be the second to know.” Here is the transcript. Bennett was on in the second half of the show.

Utah requires an independent (for office other than President) to submit a petition by March 15. If Bennett decided to run for re-election as an independent, he would need to win a lawsuit against that deadline. Getting the signatures would be no problem if it weren’t for the deadline, because only 1,000 are needed. As noted in earlier posts about Bennett, five circuits have invalidated deadlines for non-presidential independents that are as early as the deadline for candidates filing in a primary, and only one circuit has upheld such a deadline. Also the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a 3-judge district court against an Arkansas deadline in April, when the Arkansas primary at the time was in May.

Utah also has a “sore loser” law (for office other than President), and Bennett would need to overcome that law also. Although “sore loser” laws are constitutional for people who have lost a primary, there is no precedent on Utah’s type of sore loser law, which even applies to someone who has not run in a primary, but merely failed to get enough support at a preliminary party meeting.

Bennett is also free to be a declared write-in candidate in November. Elections officials would be horrified at the thought, however; write-in votes cost far more time and money to count than votes cast for someone on the ballot. Someone as popular as Bennett would, if he campaigned hard, undoubtedly receive tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of write-in votes. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.

Maine Libertarians Say They Will Try to Petition for Party Status in 2012

Posted on by May 16, 2010
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On May 15, the Maine Libertarian Party held a party meeting, and voted to attempt a petition to qualify the party for the 2012 ballot. See this story.

The full party petition in Maine has only existed since 1976, and has only been used successfully once, by the Reform Party in late 1995. However, even if the petition drive fails, any group that tells the state that it intends to complete this petition gains the ability for voters to register as members of that group. The newspaper story says 27,544 signatures are required. However, that is not accurate. The 2012 requirement will be 5% of the number of people who vote for Governor in November 2010, and obviously no one knows what the number will be. But it is likely to be approximately 20,000 signatures. No state ever has higher turnout in midterm years than in presidential years. The 27,544 figure is what would have been required this year, and is based on the very high-turnout 2008 election.

Minor parties generally gain qualified status in Maine by running someone for Governor who then polls 5%. That is a far easier method, because the candidate petition for Governor is 4,000 signatures, and a party label is permitted for candidate petitions. Libertarians in Maine were free to have used that method this year, but did not do so. Such a petition is due May 27, 2010.

The news story mentions that the Maine Libertarian Party had qualified status in 1992. This is correct. The party got that status by yet a third way. Maine law lets a group become a qualified party if any independent candidate for Governor or President who got 5% assigns his or her votes to that group, up to a year after the election. The Libertarian Party got qualified status in Maine in 1991 because an independent candidate for Governor in 1990, Andrew Adams, “gave” his 5% vote total to the party after the election was over. Adams had not been listed on the ballot as a Libertarian, just as an independent. No other state has ever had such a method for creating a new ballot-qualified party. The Maine Libertarian Party qualified status only lasted a year because it was unable to poll 5% for President in 1992. The law is different now, as a result of several improvements in the last few years. If a party gets qualified status under the new laws, it keeps it as long as it has at least 10,000 registered members who actually turn out and vote in any general election. It doesn’t matter who they vote for, just that they go to the polls and vote.

New York Times Reviews Proposal to Make New York City Elections Non-Partisan

Posted on by May 15, 2010
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The New York Times has this article, discussing the ongoing discussion on whether to make New York city elections non-partisan. Over three-fourths of the twenty largest cities in the U.S. have non-partisan elections, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. The largest city to have partisan elections, other than New York city, is Philadelphia.