Ballot Access News has just faxed a letter to Missouri Representative Theodore Hoskins, sponsor of HB894, which would require all minor party and independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in March of election years. The text of the letter follows:

Dear Rep. Hoskins, Concerning HB 894, I have the greatest respect for you and for anyone who tries to treat all candidates equally. I understand that you introduced HB 894 because you believe in equal treatment, and I also believe in equal treatment.

But there is another consideration, and that is a free election requires flexibility. Specifically, it isn’t a free election if all avenues to the general election ballot are closed off as early as 8 months before an election.

In 1988, the U.S. State Dept. criticized Armenia for passing an election law that required all candidates to qualify six months before their election. In Great Britain, even though parties choose their party leaders years before any particular House of Commons election, the deadline for candidates for House of Commons to get on the ballot is only 12 days before the election.

Often events occur during an election year, which lead people to want to enter a race late. This is why we have procedures for independent candidates and new parties, and current Missouri law properly lets them enter the race in late July.

Congress passed the terrible Kansas-Nebraska Act in May 1854. This opened up Kansas and Nebraska Territories to slavery. In response, on July 6, 1854, the Republican Party was formed, to fight that law. The Republican Party won more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in fall 1854 than any other party.

If there had been a law back then saying no one could enter the race after March, the success of the Republican Party would have been impossible in 1854. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Anderson v Celebrezze, 460 US 780 (1983), that the Constitution requires a route onto the ballot later than March 20, at least for president. A US District Court in Missouri held your state’s old April petition deadline unconstitutional in McCarthy v Kirkpatrick, 420 F Supp 366 (1976). I know that’s different than a Declaration of Candidacy deadline, but see Cromer v State, 917 F 2d 819 (4th cir. 1991), disallowing a South Carolina law requiring an independent candidate to file a Declaration of Candidacy in February.

The Missouri Democratic and Republican Parties are free to give themselves more time to enter your state’s primary, if they feel disadvantaged by their March deadline. Their deadline could easily be moved to May with no harm to election administration. Sincerely yours, Richard Winger, editor, Ballot Access News.

On April 10, the Alabama House unanimously passed H332. It requires write-in candidates to file a declaration of candidacy, before the election, if they wish their write-ins to be counted.

Overall, this is probably a gain for voting rights, not a loss. Assuming the bill is passed into law, write-in candidates who file the declaration of candidacy will get a state tally of how many write-ins they got. Under current law, the Secretary of State doesn’t do a statewide tally, although at least in 2006 she included the write-in results (on the internet) as reported by each county. For instance, last year, anyone who wanted to know how many write-ins Loretta Nall (Libertarian write-in candidate for Governor) received, had to examine each county’s reports and add them all up. Under H332, the Secretary of State would have done this work and included the total in the official state results. Thirtysix other states also have a write-in declaration of candidacy law.

However, H332 is flawed because it requires the write-in declaration to be submitted 90 days before the general election. This is far too long, and partly defeats one purpose of having write-in space on the ballots, which is to take account of last-minute events that might propel someone to get into the race in September or October.

Even though the Arkansas House passed HB 1703 (the National Popular Vote Plan), it didn’t pass the Senate, and the legislature has now recessed. Although the legislature will reconvene later this month for a few days, bills that didn’t already pass are dead for the year. The Senate committee that would have voted on HB 1703 requires 5 votes to pass bills, and HB 1703 only had support from 4 Senators on that committee.