Independent New Jersey Gubernatorial Candidate at 7% in Quinnipiac Poll

Posted on by August 11, 2009
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A Quinnipiac Poll released on August 11 shows the following for the New Jersey gubernatorial race: Chris Christie (Republican) 46%, Jon Corzine (Democrat) 40%, Chris Daggett (independent) 7%, other or undecided 7%.

No candidate for Governor of New Jersey, other than the Democratic or Republican nominee, has polled as much as 5% since 1913, when the Progressive Party nominee, Everett Colby, polled 11.0%.

The New Jersey ballot is designed to minimize the vote for minor party and independent candidates. In almost all counties, the Democratic and Republican Party columns are headed by the words “Democratic” or “Republican” in very large print. All other candidates are squeezed into other columns headed by “Nomination by Petition.” That column is a confusing jumble of the other candidates, with any partisan label in tiny print next to their names. The order of these candidates is different in each county. New Jersey is the only state in the nation that gives party column headings to the qualified parties but not to the other parties. Also New Jersey has gone longer than any state (since 1920) in not recognizing any qualified parties except the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Chicago Columnist Points Out Ambiguity in U.S. Elections Over Enforcement of Qualifications

Posted on by August 11, 2009
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Long-time Chicago columnist and blogger Dennis Byrne has this op-ed in the Chicago Tribune of August 11. His point is that no one is in charge of determining whether candidates for federal office meet the constitutional qualifications.

Of course, the Constitution does give Congress the authority to count the electoral votes, and precedent permits Congress to refuse to count electoral votes for candidates for president or vice-president who do not meet the constitutional qualifications. This precedent was set in 1869, when Congress refused to count the three electoral votes for Horace Greeley. Congress felt the votes were void because Greeley had died after the November 1868 election, but before the electoral college had met in December.

Byrne’s column would have been stronger if he had mentioned the patchwork state of the law, when a presidential candidate who is clearly not eligible files to be on the ballot. The Socialist Workers Party has several times nominated under age 35 candidates for President. About half the states in which the party has petitioned print the name of such a candidate on the ballot anyway, under the theory that the true candidates are the presidential elector candidates. The other states have a different policy.

Senate Bill for Revised FEC Would Require One Non-Major Party Commissioner

Posted on by August 11, 2009
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On August 7, U.S. Senators Russell Feingold and John McCain introduced S.1648. It would replace the Federal Election Commission with a Federal Election Administration. The new body would have three members. All three would need to have different party affiliations than any of the others. Section 352(a) of the bill says, “(a) In General — the Administration shall be composed of 3 members, 1 of whom shall serve as the Chair. No member of the Administration shall — (1) be affiliated with the same political party as any other member of the Administration; or (2) have been affiliated with the same political party as any other member of the Administration at any time during the 5-year period ending on the date on which such individual is nominated to be a member of the Administration.”

One difficulty is that 21 states have no such concept as registration by political party, so whether someone is “affiliated” with any particular party is ambiguous.

The bill has no other co-sponsors so far, and no companion in the U.S. House. Thanks to Damon Eris of Poli-Tea for this news, and also to ElectionLawBlog.

Constitution Party Will Try to Regain Party Status in Wisconsin in 2010

Posted on by August 10, 2009
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The Wisconsin Constitution Party has a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, Rob Taylor. His campaign website is here. If he polls 1% of the vote in 2010, the party’s status as a qualified party will be regained.

The Constitution Party first attained status as a qualified party in Wisconsin in 1994, when it polled 1.36% for Secretary of State. It kept that status (by polling 1% every four years for one of the statewide offices) until 2006. By then, the party’s leader, Ed Frami, had died, and its two 2006 statewide nominees failed to get themselves on the party’s primary ballot, so obviously they couldn’t get 1% of the vote in November 2006.

Minnesota TV Stations Sue County Over Access to 2008 Absentee Ballots

Posted on by August 10, 2009
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On August 10, five television stations in Minnesota filed a lawsuit in state court, against Ramsey County election officials. Those officials refuse to let the TV stations examine last year’s general election absentee ballots. The TV stations want to analyze why several hundred absentee ballots were rejected by the county. The lawsuit is KSTP-TV v Ramsey County, 2nd judicial district, 62-cv-09-9240.

After the disputed 2000 presidential election, news media were able to examine all the Florida ballots. A consortium of news organizations spent almost a year recounting them all.