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.

The New York Independence Party will choose its presidential candidate on September 21 in Albany, New York.

On September 10, the Kansas Secretary of State removed Chuck Baldwin from the ballot, and substituted Ted Weill for president, as the Reform Party’s presidential nominee. This action was taken, even though the Kansas Secretary of State knows that the Kansas Reform Party nominated Chuck Baldwin and even though there are no Reform Party candidates for presidential elector pledged to Weill. The Kansas Secretary of State took this action after being notified by a Texas Reform Party official that the Reform Party national convention had nominated Weill. I spoke to an elections department official in Kansas, who said that it is the responsibility of the state party to nominate candidates for presidential elector. I said, “But the Kansas Reform Party supports Baldwin.” He said, “We know.”

The Baldwin campaign is seeking an attorney. As most readers of this blog know, the true candidates in November in a presidential election are the candidates for presidential elector. The only candidates for elector certified to the Kansas Secretary of State have said they will vote for Baldwin if they are elected to the electoral college. The Kansas Secretary of State has no logic on his side.