A Zogby/Wall St. Journal, published on September 12 in the Atlanta daily newspapers, shows these results for Governor: Republican 47.4%, Democratic 36.4%, Libertarian 8.1%, undecided or write-in 8.1%.
The best showing in the past for a Georgia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate was in 1998, when the party polled 3.43%. The worst showing was 2002, at 2.36%.
On September 11, an Ohio State Court of Appeals kept an anti-smoking initiative off the ballot, because some of the circulators answered a question improperly. A new Ohio law requires petition circulators to fill out a form, telling the name of their employer, if they are paid to circulate. Some of the circulators wrote that their employer was the American Cancer Society, which was sponsoring the initiative. Technically, however, the American Cancer Society had contracted with a paid petitioning firm to collect the signatures, so the true employer was that paid petitioning firm. In re Protest of Evans, 06-ap-539-548. The cae is being appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
The New Mexico ballot access case had been scheduled for September 29, but the state now says some of the ballots must be printed by September 15, so the hearing will probably be moved to September 14 or September 15. Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Vigil-Giron, US District Court.
On September 11, a U.S. District Court issued an injunction, directing South Carolina to place the Working Families Party nominees on the November 2006 ballot. The issue was the deadline for turning in the party petition. The law says the petition is due six months before the general election, and the party complied with this law. But the state then argued that the party should not be allowed to nominate any nominees this year, since the schedule for party nomination meetings for older parties requires that those meetings take place in the early spring.
The state had been sued over this issue in 1996, by the Natural Law Party, and in court had conceded that it was wrong. This year, the Election Commission decided to ignore what it had done in 1996 and put up a fight to keep the Working Families Party off this year’s ballot. However, the party won. The case is Working Families Party v South Carolina Election Commission, 3:06cv-2125.
On September 11, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear Romanelli v Caroselli, 132 MM 2006. The issue is whether anyone eligible to register to vote may sign a petition for a minor party or independent candidate, or whether only registered voters may sign. If one reads the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Pennsylvania election code, both seem to say clearly that anyone eligible to register may sign. Ralph Nader raised the same issue in 2004, but the State Supreme Court refused to rule on it since he hadn’t raised that point in the lower court. In the new case, Romanelli did raise it in the lower court, which rejected the claim.
