On January 30, the Republican National Committee chose Michael Steele of Maryland to be its new national chair. One of the other candidates for chair, Ken Blackwell, dropped out and endorsed Steele after placing last in the fourth ballot.

Blackwell, a former Ohio Secretary of State, behaved with hostility toward minor parties and independent candidates while he was Secretary of State in 2003 and 2004. In late 2003, he rejected the Ohio Libertarian Party’s petition because the wording on the petition changed while the party was conducting its petition. When the party started its petition, the petition was supposed to say, “The penalty for election falsification is imprisonment for not more than 6 months or a fine of not more than $1,000 or both.” During the drive, the state changed the petition so that it said instead, “Whoever commits election falsification is guilty of a felony of the 5th degree.” The party didn’t know about the wording change, and was shocked when it submitted the petition and Blackwell rejected it because of the wording.

In 2004, Blackwell rejected Ralph Nader’s independent petition because most of the signatures had been collected by people that perhaps were domiciled outside Ohio (although this was never resolved). At approximately the same time Blackwell rejected Nader’s petition, he waived the rules to allow an initiative petition to appear on the ballot even though its circulators had not been domiciled in Ohio.

Blackwell’s behavior kept Nader off the 2004 ballot, and kept the Libertarian Party off the 2004 ballot (although it qualified its presidential candidate as an independent). However, after the 2004 election was over, courts struck down the Ohio procedure for new parties to qualify, and struck down the Ohio law barring out-of-state circulators from working on an independent candidate petition, so Blackwell’s behavior was ultimately good for ballot access.

Ballot Access News just learned that in 2006, the Arizona legislature decreased the number of signatures required for a new party to get on the ballot in mid-term years. The law before 2006 required a petition of 1.33% of the last vote cast. There are always many more votes cast in presidential years than mid-term years, so this meant that approximately 20,000 signatures were required in presidential years, but 30,000 in midterm years.

Senator Karen Johnson had introduced a bill in 2006 to say the new party petition needs 1.33% of the last gubernatorial vote (so the higher presidential vote would never enter into the calculation). However, her bill failed to pass. But, apparently, another legislator picked up that aspect of the Johnson bill and put it into an omnibus election law bill, and that bill was signed into law. So, the petition for new parties in 2010 will be 20,499 signatures, not 30,480 signatures. Thanks to the Constitution Party of Arizona for making B.A.N. aware of the change.