In 2008, Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party nominee, will be on the ballot in states that cast 59.8% of the presidential vote in 2004.
By contrast, Michael Peroutka was on the ballot in states that cast 66.4% of the vote. Peroutka was the party’s presidential nominee in 2004.
Today, Kansas held an administrative hearing to determine the presidential nominee of the Reform Party of Kansas. The committee holding the hearing consisted of the Secretary of State, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Attorney General. After taking testimony, the group voted to place Chuck Baldwin on the ballot as the presidential nominee of the Reform Party of Kansas. The state party had unambiguously desired this outcome, but a doubt had been raised because a national Reform Party convention had chosen Ted Weill.
South Carolina permits fusion. This year, two ballot-qualified minor parties definitely wanted to list Barack Obama as their presidential nominee, and a third ballot-qualified party inclined toward Obama as well. However, the Obama campaign has declined all those nominations. Therefore, the Working Families Party, the United Citizens Party, and the Independence Party, will simply have no presidential nominee.
Last month, South Carolina agreed that if a presidential candidate did have a nomination from multiple parties, and if the parties jointly nominated the same slate of presidential elector candidates, then all votes would count.
Ralph Nader speaks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Thursday, September 18, at Oklahoma State University. The news conference at 12:45 pm will be followed by a rally. See his press release here for more details. Although Nader has been speaking all over the nation about the exclusionary presidential debates, in Oklahoma he will also focus on the fact that for two elections in a row now, Oklahomans have not been permitted to vote for anyone for president other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. A lawsuit is still pending against the Oklahoma ballot access law, but there still is no court date.
On September 8, U.S. District Court Judge Dee Benson struck down a Utah campaign finance law. National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation v Herbert, 2:07-cv-809. Utah law defines “political issues committee” as an entity that…makes disbursements to influence, or tend to influence, directly or indirectly, any person to…assist in keeping a statewide ballot proposition off the ballot, or refrain from voting or vote for or against any statewide ballot proposition.” A political issues committee must register with the state and file frequent reports revealing where it gets its money, and how it spends its money.
The decision says that these disclosure requirements can only be applied to groups whose major purpose is to influence elections. The plaintiff organization is quite old, and has always existed to assist individual union members when a union member has a dispute with his or her union. Utah had tried to force it to obey the disclosure laws because it ran a series of TV and radio ads aimed at members of the Utah Teacher’s Association who weren’t in sympathy with the association’s position on a referendum on school vouchers. The ads said, “If you are a teacher or school employee, you have the right not to participate in the union’s petition drive.” The ads also gave the National Right to Work organization’s toll-free telephone number and its web address. Utah elections officials interpreted this ad as a campaign ad in favor of vouchers and against the referendum petition.
