On July 1, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah) introduced S. 3212, to mandate an audit trail for vote-counting machines in federal elections. See this press release. Thanks to Rick Hasen.
Senator Feinstein already had a bill pending on this subject, S. 1487. But it didn’t have a Republican co-sponsor, and had not made any headway. The new bill is expected to have a hearing in August.
On June 30, Indiana Republican State Senator John Waterman turned in signatures to be the Taxpayer Party candidate for Governor. The party has no other nominees (except for Lieutenant Governor). No one knows how many signatures he turned in, since separate turn-ins were made to various counties. The signatures must be checked by July 15. The requirement is 32,742 signatures. If Waterman qualifies, this will be the first statewide minor party or independent petition to succeed in Indiana since 2000, when Pat Buchanan qualified as the Reform Party presidential nominee. The Libertarian Party has been on the ballot automatically in Indiana since 1994, but the Green and Constitution Parties have never been on for statewide office.
The North Carolina Libertarian Party, which nominates by convention this year, has completed the process and forwarded its list of candidates to the State Board of Elections. The party nominated candidates for U.S. House in five of the state’s thirteen districts. It also nominated a candidate for U.S. Senate, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Insurance Commissioner, 24 state legislative seats, and six for partisan county offices.
Last time the party was on the ballot, in 2004, it had no candidates for U.S. House, but 36 for state legislature.
On June 30, the chair of the Maine Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in state court, to remove the only independent candidate for U.S. Senate from the November ballot. The case is Knutson v Department of the Secretary of State, Kennebec County. The Secretary of State had determined that the candidate, Herb Hoffman, has 4,000 valid signatures. The lawsuit argues that the Secretary of State is mistaken. The specific dispute includes whether a signature is valid if the signer gives a Post Office Box address, and whether certain signatures were properly witnessed.
Hoffman is a former Democrat who supported Dennis Kucinich for president. Hoffman became disillusioned with the Democratic Party, partly because of how Kucinich was treated, and partly he disagrees with the stances of the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate on foreign policy. If Hoffman is removed from the ballot, there will only be two choices remaining on the Maine ballot in November for U.S. Senate.
Two petitioning candidates for the U.S. House in Illinois will probably file a federal lawsuit soon. It will allege that because Illinois only requires 5,000 signatures (exactly) in years after redistricting, therefore there is no state interest in requiring between 9,000 and 15,000 in all other election years.
Illinois is the only state that has ever had a fixed petition requirement for petitioning candidates for U.S. House in certain years (years such as 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012), and a much higher requirement in all other election years (5% of the last vote cast). Therefore, there are no precedents on-point.
Libertarian nominee Dan Druck collected 7,153 signatures this year, and independent Allan Stevo collected approximately 7,100. Both were challenged on the last day for challenges. The law required Druck to collect 9,858 valid signatures, and Stevo needed 10,111. The requirements are considerably higher in mid-term years.
