On the evening of August 20, America’s Independent Party (the party formed by Alan Keyes, after he failed to get the Constitution Party nomination), held its national convention. The convention was on-line. It was moderated by Thomas Hoefling, who lives in Iowa, and lasted five hours. It started at 8 p.m. central time. The convention nominated Alan Keyes for president, but made no nomination for vice-president. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
Ron Paul’s wife Carol is on the road to recovery, after three operations in the last five days. See this news from Ron Paul himself.
Ron Paul’s wife Carol is on the road to recovery, after three operations in the last five days. See this news from Ron Paul himself.
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court will hold a hearing on September 4 at 10 a.m., in the case titled “In Re: The Substitute Nomination Certificate of Bob Barr as the Libertarian Candidate for President of the U.S.”, no. 414 M.D. 2008. The hearing will be in Philadelphia at the Widener Building, One South Penn Square, 1339 Chestnut Street.
Pennsylvania permits substitution. The petitioning period in presidential election years runs from February through August 1. Since the Libertarian national convention was not held until the end of May, the party kicked off its statewide petition listing stand-in candidates for president and vice-president. Last week, a Republican Party official filed a lawsuit, alleging that the Libertarian Party should not have been permitted to use the stand-in procedure, during June and July, since by then it knew who its actual presidential and vice-presidential candidates were.
Pennsylvania case law is very strong that substitution is good public policy. For example, in 1980, John Anderson won a lawsuit to substitute his vice-presidential candidate, even though Anderson didn’t do the substitution until after the legal deadline. Anderson didn’t choose his v-p nominee until August 25 and the substitution law required the process to be done by August 20, but the Court still ruled in favor of Anderson, saying there is a strong public policy that presidential and vice-presidential candidates listed on the ballot should be the real candidates, not the stand-ins. Anderson v Davis, 419 A 2d 806.
The objector to Barr being listed on the ballot says that it misleads voters to sign for a stand-in, instead of the real candidate. The logical response to that is that the Pennsylvania election laws are to blame. Thirtynine states have a procedure by which an unqualified party can circulate a petition to qualify the party itself. This is known as a “party petition.” It doesn’t list any candidates; it just says the signers desire that that particular party be recognized. Pennsylvania, unfortunately, has no such procedure. If Pennsylvania did have a procedure by which a party can get itself on the ballot before it has chosen its candidate, then this problem would not arise.
See this TV station news article about the lawsuit.
On August 15, Bill Van Allen filed a new federal lawsuit against New York state laws that make it almost impossible for rank-and-file members of the Independence Party to elect local party officers. The case is Van Allen v Walsh, 1:08-cv-876.
The ballot-qualified Independence Party is the only qualified party in New York that has exercised its rights to permit independent voters to vote in its primary. However, New York laws say that when a voter who has been registered “independent” wishes to join a ballot-qualified party (even the Independence Party), they can’t make their membership in their new party effective until the following year. New York is the only state that makes it so difficult for an already-registered voter to join a ballot-qualified party. It is very difficult for members of a small qualified party to get on their own party’s primary ballot for party office. Van Allen argues that the law making it impossible for new members to join a party quickly is not needed for any state purpose, and that it makes it that much more difficult to find volunteers to circulate petitions for candidates for party office, and public office, to get on the party’s primary ballot. The ostensible purpose of the law is to protect parties against “raiding” by hostile outsiders. But Van Allen argues that this rationale has no purpose in a party that has invited independents to vote in its primary.
The lawsuit also attacks the New York state voter registration form, which continues to warn voters that if they register as independents, they will not be able to vote in any party’s primary. That warning is not true in relation to the Independence Party.
Van Allen’s lawsuit would have an easier road to victory if the state officers of the Independence Party would support it. However, so far they have not joined as co-plaintiffs.
