Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued three opinions on December 10, it didn’t release any election law decisions. The two election law cases that are pending were argued on October 1 and October 3, and are from Washington state and New York.
The next possible day for decisions is January 7, 2008.
There are many election law issues surrounding presidential elections, in which people assume the laws are far more restrictive, than they actually are.
1. In approximately half the states, fusion is legal for president. It is impossible to say exactly how many states, because sometimes the details matter (is it fusion between two qualified parties, or a qualified party and an unqualified party, or between a party and an independent).
2. Sore loser laws do not generally apply to presidential candidates. Presidential candidates who ran in presidential primaries, and then appeared on the general election ballot under a different label, have included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, John B. Anderson, Lyndon LaRouche, and David Duke. No state has ever kept a presidential candidate off the general election ballot because he was a “sore loser”, except that Mississippi kept Lyndon LaRouche off as an independent in 1992 on those grounds. He tried to sue, but couldn’t obtain an attorney.
The logical basis for “sore loser” laws does not apply to presidential candidates, because the true candidates in November are candidates for presidential elector. Article Two of the Constitution makes this clear. Presidential candidates’ names appear on November ballots in their capacity as labels for competing slates of electors, not as candidates per se.
Third Party Watch reports that the Libertarian Party National Committee just unanimously passed a resolution, which reads, in part, “In the event that Republican primary voters select a candidate other than Congressman Paul in February of 2008, the Libertarian National Committee invites Congressman Paul to seek the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party, to be decided in Denver, Colorado, during the Memorial Day weekend of 2008.”
Third Party Watch has an eyewitness reporter at this meeting, which has been going on this weekend in Charleston, South Carolina. The Paul resolution was authored by former Congressman Bob Barr.
New Hampshire State Senator Peter Burling’s bill to expand access to the statewide voter list will let any group that places candidates on the general election have access to the list. In addition, groups that are striving to influence political events will also have access to it. The bill doesn’t have a number yet.
The bill will bring the state into compliance with a court ruling that said restricting the list to only the qualified parties is unconstitutional.
Goshen, New York, held a special bond election on December 4, for the voters to decide “yes” or “no” on school construction. New York still uses mechanical voting machines. Those machines have counters in the back, much like car odometers. There are only three digits for each voting choice. Thus, when the machine gets up to 999 votes for one particular voting choice, the next vote for that choice turns the counter in the back to zero.
The County Board of Elections understands this, and always makes sure that there are enough machines so that no one machine gets that many voters. However, in this case, the County had loaned the machines to the city, and the officials conducting the city election did not understand the problem. The city only used 2 machines, even though there were 10,000 voters eligible to vote.
When the election was over, one machine’s counters had 309 yes votes, and 10 no votes. The other machine had 314 yes votes and 24 no votes. Over 2,600 voters had voted.
Although one can guess that the “No” side had the majority, and that the true totals on the first machine should have been 309 “yes”, 1,010 “no”…and that the second machine should have been 314 “yes” and 1,024 “no”…one can’t prove that the true results weren’t 1,309 “yes” and 10 “no” on the first machine, and 1,314 “yes” and 24 “no” on the second machine. So it appears the vote will need to be re-done. Thanks to ElectionUpdates for this story.
