Georgia HB 487 is considered likely to pass. It would move the presidential primary from March to the first Tuesday in February. It would also change the percentage of the total vote needed to avoid a run-off election or a run-off primary from 50% to 45%. Georgia is the only state that requires candidates in general elections to receive a majority, or any particular specified percentage, of the total vote.
Jerry Rafshoon and Doug Bailey, two founders of Unity08, answered questions on-line on February 16. Some of the most interesting questions and answers are these:
1. Question: what if the candidate we choose fares well and wins one of the major party primaries? Answer by Jerry Rafshoon: We will not be choosing our candidate until the other parties have anointed their candidate, which, as always, will happen early in the process. Therefore, it is doubtful that that candidate will try for our nomination. However, he or she is eligible to do so, but would have to choose a running mate who is not a member of his or her party.
2. Question: what about congressional candidates? Answer by Jerry Rafshoon: It is not our intention to field any candidate for Congress.
3. Question: can we get our nominee on the ballot of all states? Answer by Doug Bailey: It is doable. In some states it is remarkably doable. One reason is that third party candidates over the last 20 years have fought enough battles in the courts to lower the requirements in state after state.
To read the entire set of questions ans answers, go to www.unity08.com. The webpage also lists the organization’s Rules Committee, which is composed of these ten individuals: Co-chairs Carolyn Tieger and Thomas Collier; and members Michael Turk, Valerie Syme, Sayuri Matthews, David C. King, Dennis G. Johnson, Anna Friedinger, Will Fogal, and Peter Ackerman.
A bill has been introduced in the Minnesota House to repeal the law that requires a certain minimum number of votes in a primary, before a party can successfully nominate any candidates in a primary. It is HF 616. The law says if a party fails to attract a number of primary voters, equal to 10% of its last general election vote, then all its primary nominees are disqualified. The law was declared unconstitutional in 2004 by the Minnesota Supreme Court, so it is a void law. Nevertheless, it’s always good for a state legislature to repeal such laws and get them off the statute books.
Maryland HB 826 would require parties to let independents vote in their primaries. Michigan HB 4098 would convert the state’s open primary into a blanket primary. Both bills, if passed, would probably be held unconstitutional if either major party objected.
On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will hear New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres, 06-766. This is the first ballot access case the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear since 1992. It concerns access to the primary ballot. The lower courts had invalidated New York’s petition requirements for major party members who try to get on the primary ballot for Delegate to Party Judicial Conventions. That requirement was a petition of 500 signatures, to be collected from party members in 37 days. Someone who wanted to be a judge, and who was therefore motivated to run a full slate of candidates for Delegate pledged to that person, would need between 4,500 and 12,000 valid signatures, depending on which Judicial District was involved. For Democrats, on the average, this works out to a petition requirement of 1.37% of the eligible signers; for Republicans it is 2.39%.
This is the first time the U.S. Supreme Court has ever taken a case involving the number of signatures needed to get on a primary ballot. Normally states don’t make primary ballot access especially difficult, although it is very difficult in New York, Massachusetts and Maine.
Also on February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down 3 other election law cases: (1) Initiative & Referendum Institute v Herbert, over whether Utah could say that initiatives on the subject of taking wildlife need a two-thirds vote to pass; (2) Carl Romanelli’s pro se case on Pennsylvania’s procedures for checking signatures; (3) Protect Marriage v Orr, over Illinois’ random sample procedures for checking signatures on initiative petitions.
