This editorial from the Fort Wayne, Indiana, News-Sentinel, is a remarkably well-informed attack on Indiana’s ballot access laws. One point the editorial could have made, and didn’t, is that no one has successfully completed a statewide independent or minor petition in Indiana since 2000. Indiana is one of only five states in which Ralph Nader has never appeared on the ballot. Thanks to Mitch Harper for the link.
A U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, will hear the Libertarian Party’s ballot access case on July 14, at 10 a.m. The issue is whether the party is a qualified party. The hearing will be before Judge Edmund Sargus.
The party submitted a petition on March 3, 2008, to qualify itself as a party. It had 6,500 signatures on it. The Secretary of State’s office had ruled last year that, since Ohio has no valid law on how a new party gets on the ballot, she would administratively require 20,114 signatures, due in late November 2007. The Libertarian Party argues that (1) it has a modicum of voter support, as shown by its petition and also by being qualified now in 30 other states; (2) the Secretary of State did not have authority to create a new procedure, in the absense of any legislative grant of authority to her to do that; (3) her procedure, in any event, is still unconstitutional, because of the extraordinarily early deadline. No other state has a mandatory procedure for a new party to get on the ballot that is as early as November of the year before the election.
The New Hampshire Libertarian Party’s original statewide petition has enough valid signatures on it for the presidential stand-in candidate (George Phillies), and also for the party’s U.S. Senate nominee, Ken Blevens. The party is still short approximately 1,000 signatures for its gubernatorial nominee, Susan Newell. The party is now working on a new statewide petition that includes the gubernatorial nominee and also Bob Barr for president, plus some additional state legislative candidates.
If the new petition also gets 3,000 valid signatures, the Secretary of State plans to put both Bob Barr and George Phillies on the November ballot as Libertarian candidates for president. The petition deadline is August 6. If the Massachusetts Libertarian lawsuit wins (see prior blog item), it is likely that the Libertarian Party will also sue New Hampshire over substitution. If the Barr petition has been finished, at that point the purpose of the New Hampshire lawsuit would be to give permission for George Phillies to withdraw.
This is the first time any minor party statewide petition has had enough valid signatures in New Hampshire, since 2002, when the Libertarian Party last successfully completed a statewide petition (for Governor and U.S. Senator). The party’s statewide petitions in both 2004 and 2006 failed to garner enough valid signatures.
On June 19, the Massachusetts ACLU agreed to represent the Libertarian Party in court, over the failure of the Massachusetts Secretary of State to let the Libertarian Party substitute its actual presidential candidate, Bob Barr, for the party’s stand-in presidential candidate, George Phillies.
All the court precedents from other states concerning presidential and vice-presidential substitution are favorable. Furthermore, Massachusetts allowed vice-presidential substitution for John B. Anderson in 1980, and also told the Constitution Party in 1996 that presidential substitution is allowed. Massachusetts also told the Reform Party in 2000 that vice-presidential substitution is allowed. And, Massachusetts told Ralph Nader in 2004 that vice-presidential substitution is allowed.
The basis for allowing presidential and vice-presidential substitution is equal protection. All states allowed the Democratic Party to substitute a new vice-presidential candidate in 1972. The Democratic National Convention had chosen Thomas Eagleton for vice-president, at its national convention in July. A month later, Eagleton resigned from the ticket. The Democratic National Committee called an emergency meeting and chose Sargent Shriver as the new vice-presidential candidate. The party had already certified Eagleton’s name to all 50 states, but all states accepted an amended certification that Shriver’s name should be put on the ballot instead.
One of the favorable court precedents is El-Amin v State Board of Elections, Commonwealth of Virginia, 721 F Supp 770 (1989). The U.S. District Court said that Virginia’s failure to let independent candidate committees use substitution does not even pass the rational basis test (page 775), since Virginia lets qualified parties engage in substitution.
On June 19, a Maine hearing officer issued an opinion that Herbert J. Hoffman has enough valid signatures and should be listed on the November ballot. He is the only independent candidate on the ballot for Maine’s U.S. Senate election this year, and there are no minor party candidates for that race.
The state Democratic Party had challenged Hoffman’s petition, even though the town clerks had found that he had the needed 4,000 valid signatures. The challengers asserted that all voters who had listed a post office box on the petition (instead of their physical street address) should be rejected, but the Hearing Examiner disagreed with that idea. Thanks toDavid Bright for this news.
