Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party presidential candidate, opens his campaign headquarters on June 24. It will be at 5500 Division St. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan. The campaign chose Grand Rapids because the Constitution Party has a strong organization in that area.
The Libertarian presidential campaign hq is in Atlanta. The Nader campaign hq is in Washington, D.C. Assuming Cynthia McKinney gets the Green nomination, her hq will probably be in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Eugene Platt, Green Party nominee for South Carolina State House (115th district) will ask the Election Commission to place him on the November ballot, at an administrative hearing on Friday, June 27. His ballot status is threatened because, after he was nominated by the Green Party in convention, he was defeated in the South Carolina Democratic primary. South Carolina law seems to say that someone who wins one party nomination, and tries and fails to win another nomination, cannot be listed on the November ballot. On the other hand, there is a plausible theory that the law only applies to candidates who first lose a party nomination in one party, and then only afterwards obtains the nomination of another party. Generally, states can ban “sore losers”, but Pratt isn’t a “sore loser” because he won his first nomination battle. He also won the nomination of the Working Families Party. South Carolina does permit two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate.
For more about this, see here. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
On May 30, Ralph Nader filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that the Democratic National Committee, the Kerry 2004 campaign, 18 state Democratic Parties, at least 53 law firms, and several section 527 organizations, unlawfully coordinated their nationwide effort to keep Nader off the ballot in 2004. The complaint is 100 pages, and the appendices (i.e., evidence) are also very lengthy. Among other points, the complaint accuses the law firms with making contributions to the Kerry campaign that were never reported.
The Right to Life Party was a qualified party in New York state from 1978 through 2002. It went off the ballot in November 2002 because its gubernatorial candidate that year polled 44,195 votes, below the 50,000 vote requirement.
However, the party has continued to run candidates by petition, especially in Westchester County. The highest-level office it has run for recently has been Judge of the Supreme Court, 9th district. State Supreme Court judges in New York are elected in partisan elections. In 2004 it got 1.39% of the vote for that office; in 2005, it got 4.17% for its highest vote-getter for that office; in 2007, it got 3.43% for its highest vote-getter. In 2008, there are no Supreme Court elections in the district that includes Westchester County, so the party will decide whether to petition for some other partisan office. The Westchester County chapter will hold a meeting on June 25 to make a decision.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court put out three full opinions on Monday, June 23, it did not release the only pending election law decision. The next decision day is Wednesday, June 25.
