Activists in Washington state are working to persuade the 2008 session of the legislature to ease ballot access. Here is their webpage. Washington state is the only state in the western half of the United States that has no procedure for a party to qualify itself (before it has chosen its nominees).
The August 19 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this article, an interview of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. It is possible he will run for president as an independent. He is an expert on defense and foreign policy. Thanks to David Leip for this news.
On August 17, New York state and its allies filed rebuttal briefs in New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres, with the U.S. Supreme Court. The Board of Elections brief is here; the Attorney General’s brief is here; the New York Republican Party’s brief is here.
Two of the three briefs make no defense of New York state’s ballot access laws for candidates trying to get on primary ballots to run for Delegate to Party Judicial Conventions. The brief of the New York State Board of Elections even says that the ballot access laws are not properly part of the lawsuit. However, the complaint filed by Margarita Lopez Torres on March 18, 2004 says on page two, “Because of the insurmountable burdens of running delegates for the convention across a judicial district, real challenges almost never occur.”
The Attorney General’s brief does make a half-hearted attempt to defend the ballot access laws. It says on page 8, “New York law makes it easy for interested voters to run or help others run for delegate slots in their assembly district” and then has a note that an individual candidate for delegate needs only 500 signatures.
The briefs of the state and its allies argues that the challenged New York procedures should be upheld because the political parties favor the restrictive system. However, only one of New York state’s 5 qualified parties, the Republican Party, has expressed itself. One wonders what the state would say if one of New York’s ballot-qualified parties filed a lawsuit, saying that party wants a freer system.
On August 18, the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee voted that independent voters should not be allowed to vote in Republican primaries for Congress. The Louisiana presidential primaries have always been closed to independents, so this decision isn’t too suprising.
Louisiana hasn’t had party primaries for Congress since 1976, but starting in 2008, there will be party primaries for Congress in Louisiana. Therefore, each of the state’s 5 qualified parties must decide whether to let independents vote in its congressional primaries. The other 4 parties haven’t decided yet.
On August 16, a new lawsuit was filed against Georgia’s law, requiring that voters at the polls show a government Photo-ID in order to vote. Young v Billups, 4:07-cv-163-HLM. Here is the complaint. The plaintiffs, two individuals who do not possess any such ID, and who cannot easily obtain a free state ID because of difficulty in traveling to the government office that furnishes such ID, first attempted to intervene in an older federal lawsuit on the same issue. However, the judge ruled that it was too late for them to intervene. Therefore, they filed their own lawsuit. The original federal lawsuit has a hearing in federal court in Rome, Georgia, on August 22. The original case is Common Cause v Billups, 4:05-cv-201.
