The July 9 issue of The Sun Chronicle, daily newspaper for Attleboro, Massachusetts, has this article, speculating that the 2010 gubernatorial race will be an unpredictable 3-way contest. Incumbent State Treasurer Tim Cahill is expected to run for Governor as an independent, because he recently changed his registration to “Independent”.
A state court in Carson City, Nevada, will soon decide whether all registered voters are permitted to sign a recall petition, or whether only voters who voted at the last election may sign. The case arose in 2008 when some residents of Boulder City tried to recall two members of the City Council.
Three weeks after the petition drive had been launched, Secretary of State Ross Miller ruled that only voters who had voted in the previous city council election could sign. He based his ruling on the Nevada Constitution, Article 2, section 9, which authorizes recall. The Constitution says, “For this purpose (recall), not less than 25% of the number who actually voted in the state or in the county, district, or municipality which he represents, at the election in which he was elected, shall file their petition, in the manner herein provided, demanding his recall by the people.”
Most people, on reading this section, probably interpret it to mean that the “actually voted” language modifies “25%”. In other words, the “actually voted” is in the Constitution to help elections officials calculate the number of signatures. The percentage would be based on the number of votes cast for that particular office, not the number of voters who put a ballot into the voting box.
But because the Secretary of State interpreted that sentence to mean that only voters who actually voted in the last city council election may sign the petition, the recall failed. Approximately 30% of the signatures, which would otherwise have been valid, were not counted because those signers hadn’t voted in the last city council election.
Although the 2009 session of the legislature passed SB 156, interpreting the Constitution to say that any registered voter may sign, the bill does not take effect until this year, so it doesn’t help the Boulder City recall proponents. The case is Waymire v Miller, 08-oc-00244-1B. A decision is expected soon.
On July 9, Ralph Nader asked the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, for an en banc rehearing in his case against the Democratic National Committee for actions in the 2004 election. The original 3-judge panel had ruled last month that Nader’s case had been filed a few months too late in 2007, and that the Statute of Limitations bars the court from hearing the case.
The main point of the petition for rehearing is that it is impossible to know whether the Statute of Limitations was violated without taking evidence, and no court in this case has ever permitted any evidence-gathering.
On the evening of July 9, the New York city Executive Committee of the Working Families Party nominated William C. Thompson for Mayor. Thompson is expected to be the Democratic Party’s nominee as well. See this story. Thompson needed two-thirds of the vote, and received that, with two votes to spare.
By contrast, in the 2005 Mayoral election, the Working Families Party had no nominee for Mayor, because neither the Democratic nominee, Fernando Ferrer, nor the Republican/Independence nominee, Mayor Bloomberg, were able to win two-thirds of the vote of the WFP’s executive committee.
California requires independent candidates for legislature and U.S. House to submit 500 signatures in special elections. On July 9, the Secretary of State’s webpage was amended to reflect that such candidates in the upcoming U.S. House special election, 10th district, do indeed need 500 signatures. Earlier the webpage had said they require 1,000.
