On October 16, the Massachusetts Secretary of State filed notice of appeal in Barr v Galvan, the case over whether the U.S. Constitution requires states to let unqualified parties use stand-in presidential candidates on their ballot access petitions. The Libertarian Party had won this case in the U.S. District Court last month.

The law in Massachusetts is ambiguous about whether such substitution is permitted. Over the years, the Massachusetts Secretary of State has given conflicting rulings on whether it is permitted or not. The state’s position seems to be that substitution is permitted for minor parties that don’t choose their presidential nominees until July or August of the election year, but that it is not permitted for parties that have a national presidential convention in May or in earlier months. The Libertarian Party national convention is usually on the last weekend of May in presidential election years.

On Friday, October 16, the people in Washington state who desire to keep private the names and addresses of people who signed the R-71 Referendum petition asked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to get involved in the case. Kennedy is the U.S. Supreme Court member who handles such requests from the 9th circuit. Kennedy has been asked to order the Secretary of State not to release the names and addresses, while the constitutional issue is being decided. On Friday evening, Kennedy asked the State of Washington to file a response, which is due at 3 p.m. on Monday, October 19. The case is Doe v Reed. In the meantime, the 9th circuit (which had ruled on October 15 that the names and addresses should be released) has been asked to suspend its order until the U.S. Supreme Court has considered the matter.

Here is the 36-page brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

The Whig Party announced on October 19 that it will have at least three candidates on the Florida ballot for U.S. House in 2010. They will be Paul McKain, who is running in the 2nd district and had already announced; John Annarumma in the 3rd district, and Clayton Schock in the 20th district.

Florida abolished mandatory petitions for minor party and independent candidates for partisan office in 1999 (except that independent presidential candidates still need approximately 100,000 signatures). Yet despite the fact that any political party, no matter how small, can now place candidates on the Florida ballot with no petition, there have been virtually no minor party candidates for U.S. House in Florida in the last ten years. No minor party has yet had as many as three candidates for U.S. House in any election year. The Libertarians had two in 2004, and the Reform Party had two in 2000. The Green Party has not had any in the last ten years. The most the Constitution Party ever had in any one year was one (one in 2002 and one in 2004). The Socialist Workers Party has not had any.

The reason for the paucity of candidates for U.S. House is that the filing fee is more than $8,500. There is a petition in lieu of filing fee, which requires approximately 4,500 signatures of voters in the district.