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.

Hawaii holds an open primary on September 20, a Saturday. The state has an open primary system. Traditionally, Hawaii has printed primary ballots for each party, and given a complete set of primary ballots to each voter. The voter decides in the privacy of the voting booth which party’s primary ballot to use, and throws away the ballots of the other parties.

This year, only one primary ballot will be printed. At the top, the voter will be asked which party’s primary is desired. Then, the vote-counting machines will only accept votes cast in that particular party. If a voter happens to vote for candidates in both the Democratic and Republican primaries, the machine will only count the votes that were cast in the party that the voter had chosen at the top of the ballot. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

Some major party leaders are worried that voters will choose the “Independent Party” choice at the top of the ballot. The Independent Party was placed on the ballot to get Ralph Nader on the November ballot, for president. However, the Independent Party does have two candidates running for the state legislature, but since each is unopposed in his own district, the Independent Party primary will not be very exciting. Nevertheless, if a voter chooses “Independent Party” at the top of the primary ballot, and then votes for various Democrats or Republicans, his or her vote won’t count.

Ralph Nader’s ballot access lawsuit against Hawaii from 2004 is still pending in the 9th circuit. It argues that the state cannot require six times more signatures for an independent presidential candidate than an entire new party. In some preliminary meditation talks, Hawaii elections officials said they are considering asking the legislature to reduce the number of signatures for independent presidential candidates. If Hawaii had made such a change before 2008, it wouldn’t be faced with the problem of having an “Independent Party” on the primary ballot.

Robert Bernhoft will argue on behalf of Chuck Baldwin, in the California case over who should be listed on the ballot as the presidential nominee of the American Independent Party. Bernhoft is the senior partner at the Bernhoft law firm. That firm last month won Ralph Nader’s ballot access case against Arizona in the 9th circuit. The firm also gathered publicity earlier in the year, when it saved movie actor Wesley Snipes from a severe criminal penalty in a case prosecuted by the Internal Revenue Service.

The hearing will be August 26, at 9:00 am, in Sacramento Superior Court, 720 9th St. in downtown Sacramento. The case is King v Bowen.