On December 5, the Ohio Supreme Court releases its opinion in State ex rel Skaggs v Brunner. The decision invalidates provisional ballots in which the voter failed to both sign, and print his or her name on the outer envelope. Now that this issue has been decided, Ohio can recommence counting its provisional ballots.
On December 4, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth refused to re-open the matter of whether Ralph Nader should pay approximately $80,000 in court costs, over the 2004 petition. Nader had asked that the matter be re-opened, given that earlier this year, the Attorney General indicted many people who challenged Nader’s petitions for using state resources instead of their own resources.
Nader is free to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reverse the Commonwealth Court, and he and others are also free to file a federal case that would argue that candidates and political parties may not be charged money to pay for election administration. The recent federal case in Wilkes-Barre, that found a violation of the U.S. Constitution because the city forced proponents of an initiative campaign to pay $11,000 for the costs of invalidating their petition, may help.
On December 4, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth refused to re-open the matter of whether Ralph Nader should pay approximately $80,000 in court costs, over the 2004 petition. Nader had asked that the matter be re-opened, given that earlier this year, the Attorney General indicted many people who challenged Nader’s petitions for using state resources instead of their own resources.
Nader is free to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reverse the Commonwealth Court, and he and others are also free to file a federal case that would argue that candidates and political parties may not be charged money to pay for election administration. The recent federal case in Wilkes-Barre, that found a violation of the U.S. Constitution because the city forced proponents of an initiative campaign to pay $11,000 for the costs of invalidating their petition, may help.
On the afternoon of December 5, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it had accepted two particular cases. The Court had held a conference earlier in the day to consider which cases to accept. The Court did not release any orders concerning the cases it rejected. That will not be released until Monday, December 8.
Since the Court did not accept any case concerning the eligibility of Senator Barack Obama to be president, it is extremely likely that the Court’s order list of December 8 will show that it denied the New Jersey case on that subject.
Rhode Island Senator David Bates (R-Barrington) has agreed to introduce a bill in 2009 that lowers the petition for a new political party from 5% of the last vote cast, to 1% of the last vote cast. Senator Bates has been in the Senate since 1992 and is the Deputy Minority Leader.
The Rhode Island petition to create a new party did not exist until 1994, and it has never been used. Besides requiring a very high number of signatures (currently, 23,489 signatures), it is illegal to circulate the petition during an odd year.
Rhode Island also allows a new party to become ballot-qualified if it runs a candidate for President or Governor using the independent procedure (which allow a partisan label), and if that candidate polls 5%. The only three ballot-qualified parties in Rhode Island in the last 80 years have been the Reform Party, the Cool Moose Party, and the Green Party. Ross Perot did the 1,000-signature petition for president in 1996. Because he got over 5%, that created a ballot-qualified Reform Party. The Cool Moose Party got its ballot-qualified status by running Robert J. Healey for Governor as an independent in 1994 under the Cool Moose label. Healey polled over 5% in both 1994 and again in 1998, so the Cool Moose Party enjoyed qualified status for eight years. The Green Party enjoyed qualified status for four years because Ralph Nader polled over 5% in 2000.
Ken Block, leader of the Rhode Island Moderate Party, is the activist who persuaded Senator Bates to introduce the 2009 bill.
