Alan Keyes, presidential candidate of America’s Independent Party, is only on the ballot in three states. But two of those states, California and Florida, are very populous. The third state in which Keyes is on is Colorado. He is on the ballot in states that cast 18.1% of the national popular vote in 2004.
Gloria La Riva, presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is on the ballot this year in states that cast 26.8% of the national popular vote for president in 2004. The party is new, and had never run candidates prior to 2008. All of its twelve petition drives this year succeeded.
Tennessee State Senator Rosalind Kurita, running for re-election from the 22nd district, won her Democratic primary in August by only 19 votes. But on September 13, the state Democratic Party state executive committee tentatively ruled that she is not the party’s nominee, since she encouraged Republican-minded voters to vote for her in the party’s primary. On September 17, the final decision to exclude her as the Democratic nominee was made by a combined meeting of the Democratic county committees from Montgomery, Cheatham and Houston Counties (those three counties comprise the 22nd State Senate district).
On September 18, Senator Kurita said she may sue to regain the Democratic nomination. In the meantime, she filed as a write-in for the general election. If she does sue, the precedent will be important in the ongoing legal struggle over political party rights to control their own nominations process. Tennessee does not have registration by party.
On July 7, the Arizona Supreme Court had put a candidate on the Democratic primary ballot, even though many of his petition signers wrote down a Post Office box on the petition, instead of a residence address. The Court said at the time that the candidate should be on the ballot, and that the decision would be issued later.
On August 19, the Court issued its opinion. It says that the law requires a residence address, not a post office box. But, it also says that the signature is not necessarily invalid, just because it lists a post office box instead of the residence location. “Invalidating signatures of duly registered electors does not further the purpose, intent, or spirit of Arizona’s nominating petition statutes.” When a signer lists a post office box, the burden shifts to the challenged candidate to show where that voter lives. If the candidate can show that the voter lives in the correct district, the signature is valid. The philosophy behind this decision is admirable, and contrasts with the behavior of the Maine Supreme Court in Herb Hoffman’s ballot access case earlier this year. The Maine Supreme Court had invalidated the signatures of validly registered voters because they had signed on the same sheet on which appeared an invalid signature.
The Arizona decision is Jenkins v Hale, cv-08-0208.
The New York Independence Party formally nominated the McCain-Palin ticket in Albany on September 21. Approximately 40 state committeemembers attended. Proxy voting dominates such meetings. McCain received 88% of the weighted vote, and the other 12% abstained. The entire meeting, which was a combination reorganization meeting and a state convention, last less than an hour. Frank MacKay was re-elected state chair.
