Bob Barr’s lawsuit against the Oklahoma ballot access law is expected to have a hearing sometime during the week of September 15-19. The case had been filed on July 17. It is Barr v Clingman, civ-08-730-R.

Oklahoma has not permitted voters to vote for anyone for president, other than the Democratic and Republican nominees, since 2000. The state bans write-ins, and has the nation’s only petition requirement for president (using the easier method in each state) that is in excess of 2% of the last vote cast.

The Obama campaign has set up www.voteforchange.com, to make it very easy for unregistered citizens to register to vote. The website asks a prospective voter basic questions, such as name, address, party affiliation, and other personal identifying information. Then, the website automatically fills out a voter registration application for whatever state the voter lives in. The voter is then free to print the completed application on that voter’s home printer, and sign it, and mail it to the state or local election administration address that has already been pre-printed on the form. The site is completely non-partisan and does not collect the personal information provided. Interesting, under the box for “choice of party”, the choices are Democratic, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, Green, other, and none. An entry under “other” will accept any designation. Thanks to Ed Still’s VoteLawBlog for this news.

This year, the West Virginia Secretary of State ruled that Cynthia McKinney must pay a $2,500 filing fee to be on the general election ballot, even though the Secretary of State is not telling Barack Obama or John McCain that they must pay any fee to be on the November ballot. All three candidates are similarly situated. They are all the presidential nominees of a qualified party in West Virginia. The Mountain Party, which nominated McKinney in West Virginia, is the Green Party affiliate in that state. It has been ballot-qualified since 2000.

The Secretary of State’s rationale is that Barack Obama and John McCain already paid a $2,500 fee to be on the state’s presidential primary ballot (the Mountain Party did not hold a presidential primary) and therefore her ruling is just. However, the presidential primary ballot fee is totally independent of a fee for the general election ballot. This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that in 1976, the Secretary of State did not charge Jimmy Carter the then-fee of $2,000 to be on the November 1976 ballot. Carter did not run in the West Virginia presidential primary, so he never paid any filing fee at all. The only candidates in the Democratic West Virginia primary were Senator Robert Byrd and George Wallace. All the other Democratic presidential contenders stayed out of the West Virginia primary so as not to split the anti-Wallace vote.

Also the West Virginia Secretary of State did not charge a filing fee to Richard Nixon or George McGovern in 1972. Neither of them had run in a West Virginia presidential primary either, so neither of them paid any fee at all, all year long.