This year, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in Florida, and a Republican candidate for the same office in the same state, both failed to qualify for the September 2008 primary ballot, because of paperwork errors. Both sued. However, on June 16, a Florida state court ruled against them, and the candidates aren’t appealing.

Larry Byrnes, a Democrat in the 14th district, filed his first paperwork in July 2007. He then circulated petitions in lieu of the filing fee, and obtained enough valid signatures. But because he inadvertently signed a Declaration of Candidacy to be a write-in candidate in the general election, instead of an application to be on the primary ballot, he was disqualified.

The lawsuit turned on the definition of “furnish”. The law says the Secretary of State shall furnish the proper forms. But the judge said that since all the forms were on the Secretary of State’s webpage, that satisfied the obligation to “furnish” the forms. Byrnes v Department of State, Leon Co. Circuit Court, 2008-CA-1615. The results were almost identical in the lawsuit filed by the Republican candidate, Bob Hering, running in the 8th district.

On June 25, Great Britain held a special election to fill a vacant seat in the House of Commons, for Henley (near Oxford). The results: Conservative John Howell 19,796; Liberal Democrat Stephen Kearney 9,680; Green Mark Stevenson 1,321; British National Party Timothy Rait 1,243; Labour Richard McKenzie 1,066. The Labour Party, of course, is the party with a majority in the House of Commons.

Britain and Canada are two-party systems, under the original meaning of the term “two-party system”. “Two-party system”, coined in 1911 to describe the British system, means a system in which two particular parties are far larger than all the others, and only two particular parties at any given time have a realistic chance of forming the government. But because Britain and Canada have non-discriminatory election laws, other parties do win seats and do exert influence. Britain and Canada have equal ballot access laws for all candidates; all candidates have an equal chance to be listed on the top off the ballot; all candidates face the same campaign finance rules. Under that environment, which existed in the United States in the 19th century as well, elections are far more fluid, as this recent British election shows. The Henley seat was vacant because its former member of Parliament, Boris Johnson, had resigned in order to take office as Mayor of London. Thanks to Eric Garris for this news.

Although South Carolina has always permitted “fusion” (the ability for two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate, and be listed under each label on the ballot), South Carolina elections officials say they don’t know whether it is legal to add up the votes under each party label, to give the candidate credit for all the votes. The Secretary of State said on June 26 that he will ask for an Attorney General’s Opinion on this question.