On January 25, the Ron Paul campaign filed a complaint with the Louisiana Republican Party over the confusion in the party’s caucus procedures. See this story. Thanks to Steve Rankin.
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The Reform Institute, associated somewhat with U.S. Senator John McCain, released “Presidential Ballot Access: A State by State Scorecard” on January 30. The 70-page report can be seen here. The Report condemns restrictive ballot access laws, and for that, it is praiseworthy.
Unfortunately, the state-by-state pages are massively inaccurate. The only accurate pages are for Connecticut, Iowa, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Some of the errors say that the state requirements are easier than they actually are, while others say they are much harder than they actually are. The North Carolina page says an independent presidential candidate needs 15,000 signatures. Sadly, the actual number is 69,734. For California, the report says all a new party needs to do, to get on the ballot, is file a list of its state officers. Actually it must persuade 88,991 people to register as members.
But most of the errors portray state laws as worse than they actually are. For example, the report says a qualified party in Mississippi is one that got 20% of the vote in the last presidential election. Actually any party that submits a list of state officers, and U.S. House district officers, and a copy of its Bylaws, may be recognized.
Ballot Access News editor Richard Winger repeatedly contacted the Reform Institute, over several months last year, offering to help with the report, but those phone calls were never returned.
On January 29, the West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee defeated SB 52, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. Thanks to Ed Still for this news.
On January 23, the Missouri House Urban Education Reform Committee passed HB 1310. On January 30, the Missouri House Rules Committee also passed it. It requires independent candidates, for all office, to file a declaration of candidacy in March of election years.
Since the bill does not exempt presidential independents, it is unconstitutional under both Anderson v Celebrezze, 460 US 780, and McCarthy v Kirkpatrick, 420 F Supp 366 (a 1976 Missouri federal court decision). If you live in Missouri, please contact your legislators (especially your State Senator) and oppose this bill.
Current New Hampshire law permits write-ins in primaries. The law also says that any write-in candidate in a primary who gets the most votes for a particular office, and who gets at least 10 write-ins, is nominated. HB 1204 would raise that to a minimum of 35 write-in votes.
Although it may sound trivial to require even 35 write-in votes, many New Hampshire State House districts are very small. The state has 400 State House members, and in some districts that only a single member, fewer than 1,000 voters may turn out at the primary.