If you wanted to read a confusing story today, I’ve got you covered.
Between 10 and 20 Republican Party candidates for county level offices in Alabama may be removed from their ballots due to not filing a Statement of Economic Interests with the Alabama Ethics Commission within five days after originally qualifying for the ballot.
There is an assertion by some of these candidates that Democratic Party candidates for the same offices are not being held to the same rules.
No Labels held a press conference on December 18, 2023, and stated that it will be working toward or will have achieved ballot access in 27 states by the end of 2023.
No Labels also stated that 16 states will be held in abeyance for petitioning until a presidential candidate or presidential ticket is named due to lower petitioning requirements for candidate petitions, instead of party petitions, in those states.
The organization expects to have a presidential ticket on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, although I presume that if the US Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to assume the office of President of the United States, No Labels will stand down in its efforts to field a Presidential ticket.
Here is a story on the No Labels press conference.
Yekaterina Duntsova appears to be the only candidate who is trying to get on the ballot for President of Russia, other than Vladimir Putin. This article explains that she is about to start her drive to collect 300,000 signatures.
In Reynolds v Sims, 377 U.S. 533, at page 535, the U.S. Supreme Court said, “The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government.”
In Wesberry v Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, at page 17, the Court said, “No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who makes the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.”
Justice Douglas wrote in Williams v Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, at page 39, “A state has precious little leeway in making it difficult or impossible for citizens to vote for whomever they please.”
The persons who wrote the 14th amendment, section three, never imagined that the section could dictate whom voters could or could not vote for. The restriction in Section 3 concerns who can hold an office, not whether anyone can be prevented from voting for any candidate he or she wishes.
