On July 22, the Arizona Secretary of State asked the 9th circuit to reconsider its July 9 decision in Nader v Brewer. That decision had struck down both the early June petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and also the law making it illegal for out-of-staters to circulate petitions in Arizona.
Pennsylvania Senator Mike Folmer (R-Lancaster and Lebanon Counties) has introduced a bill to greatly ease minor party and independent candidate ballot access. The bill doesn’t have a bill number yet. It is believed that it permits a minor party to be ballot-qualified (and to nominate by convention) if it has registration of one-twentieth of 1%. If that were current law, the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties would be ballot-qualified with no need for any petitioning for their nominees. UPDATE: here is Senator Folmer’s press release about the bill.
Independent candidates would need the same number of signatures that Democrats and Republicans need when they try to get on primary ballots. The statewide independent petition would be 2,000 signatures.
For eight years, the constitutionality of the Post Office regulation prohibiting petitioning on postal interior sidewalks has been pending in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in a case called Initiative & Referendum Institute v US Postal Service. In the meantime, another federal lawsuit challenging the same regulation is pending in the First Circuit. The plaintiff, Reynaldo Del Gallo, is submitting his brief on July 25. He had lost in the U.S. District Court on March 28, 2008, but he was representing himself pro se. Since then, the ACLU has found an expert attorney for his appeal.
Del Gallo was arrested, even though technically he was not petitioning on a postal sidewalk. He was standing on the post office sidewalk, asking passers-by to please visit his petition circulator, standing on a “legal” sidewalk nearby. The Post Office charged him with “electioneering”. The Post Office attorneys did not tell the Massachusetts court that the constitutionality of the anti-petitioning regulation is being litigated in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, and the plaintiff didn’t know about that case.
On July 22, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Kahn extended the petitioning period, in Ulster County, for candidates and activists who want a September primary ballot prepared for the Independence Party in Ulster County. New York doesn’t normally print up a primary ballot for a party unless there are at least two candidates running against each other for a particular office. However, it will be print a primary ballot, even if there are no candidates on that ballot, if a petition requesting such a ballot is submitted. That makes it possible for write-in candidates to be elected or nominated. The petition to require a primary ballot to be printed was due July 17, but the court order extends the time for this petition to July 31. Proponents desire write-in space on the Independence Party primary for U.S. House, both branches of the state legislature, partisan county office, and party office. If their petition succeeds, any write-in candidate who outpolls his or her opponents wins, no matter how few write-ins are obtained. The ruling is part of Loeber v Spargo, no. 04-1193. The case has many other issues relating to malapportioned districts, and is quite old. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.
On July 24, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments in Knutson v Department of the Secretary of State, case no. ken-08-375. The Court will issue its opinion on Monday, July 28. All five members of the Court who were in attendance asked questions of all the attorneys who argued. All sides agree that the independent candidate for U.S. Senate submitted at least 4,000 signatures of registered voters. The issue is whether some entire petition sheets must be rejected, on the basis of suspicion that the witness was not watching when the circulator gathered signatures on that sheet. The witness is the person who actually signs the bottom of each sheet, saying the signatures had been gathered in his or her presence. The evidence had established that the witness had not been watching when three particular signatures had been signed, but the candidate doesn’t need those three particular signatures.
