A former official of the Democratic Party kindly telephoned Ballot Access News to explain why the party’s national convention officials sent a different version of the national convention nominee certification form to Hawaii than to the other states. As noted earlier, the Democratic certification to Hawaii says the nominees for President and Vice-President are constitutionally qualified, and the certifications to the other states didn’t contain that language.

Democrats sent a different version of their Hawaii certificate because Hawaii election law, section 11-113(c)(1), says that officials of a ballot-qualified party must file a sworn application with the names and addresses of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees, and a statement that each candidate is legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Section 11-113(c)(1)(C) also requires a statement that the candidates are the duly chosen candidates of both the state and the national party. Therefore, it is plausible that the Hawaii law only applies to the state party officials, not the national party officials. But the law is ambiguous, and the Democratic national convention officers felt it was best to be cautious and assume the law applies to the national certification form. Therefore, after the 2008 Democratic national convention, the party prepared one particular type of form for Hawaii, and a simpler, shorter form for the other states.

On September 14, former Congressman John R. Rarick died in St. Francisville, Louisiana, at the age of 85. He had been the American Independent Party’s presidential candidate in 1980. He had served in Congress as a Democrat from Louisiana between 1967 and 1975. He endorsed George Wallace for President in 1968, and the Democrats in Congress, in retaliation, removed his seniority.

The American Independent Party had nominated Rarick for president on August 30, 1980, in Sacramento, California. Because Rarick was nominated so late in 1980, he only appeared on the ballot in the states in which the American Independent Party already enjoyed status as a qualified party; except that he also qualified in his own state of Louisiana, which only required paying a filing fee of $500 by early September. He was credited with 41,268 votes nationwide and was on the ballot in 8 states. Thanks to Peter Gemma for this news.

As noted earlier, on September 9 a Washington state Superior Court ruled that initiative and referendum petitions need not bear the signatures of the circulator. Also, voters may sign such petitions even if they are not registered, and their signatures will be counted if they are registered by the time the Secretary of State’s office checks the signatures. The 30-page decision in this case, Washington Families Standing Together v Reed, is now available here. Thanks to Katie Blinn of the Secretary of State’s office for this link. The ruling was issued orally so the link is to the transcript of the judge’s oral decision.

The basis for the ruling that signers need not be registered when they sign the petition, as long as they are registered by the time the petitions are checked, is that the law does not require signers to date their signatures. Thus, practically speaking, the Secretary of State can’t know exactly when any particular individual signed the petition, so it is impossible to know if the signer was registered before signing, or shortly afterwards.