On July 9, Robert Owens, Constitution Party nominee for Ohio Attorney General, was certified for the November 2008 ballot, as an independent candidate. Ohio is holding a special election for that office because the incumbent elected in 2006 resigned a few months ago. The law required Owens to submit 750 valid signatures. He was given only 10 days to collect them. The state took two months to check the petitions.
It is conceivable that someone will challenge Owens’ position on the ballot, since he voted in the March 2008 Republican primary. Ohio does not have registration by party, but Ohio elections officials keep a record of which party’s primary ballot a voter chooses.
Just in case Owens is challenged, he filed a federal lawsuit on July 9 arguing that it would violate the U.S. Constitution for Ohio to keep him off the ballot just because he voted in the Republican primary. Ohio has no law that says an independent must not have voted in a primary. It does have a vague law that says an independent must not be “affiliated” with a qualified political party. That law was upheld in Morrison v Colley, but in that case, the independent candidate had run for party office in a partisan primary, which is different than just voting in a party primary. The new case filed by Owens is Constitution Party of Ohio v Brunner, 2:08-cv-666. If Owens is not challenged, he will dismiss the lawsuit.