The lawsuit over how a write-in candidate may receive a nomination in a California party primary, will be appealed. The Sonoma Republican Party’s attorney plans to file his appeal brief on August 15.
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Louisiana has not had any minor party nominees for Congress on the ballot, with the party label, since 1972. But this year, under the newly liberalized law passed in 2004, Libertarian candidates for Congress will be on the ballot with the party label in 5 of the state’s 7 U.S. House districts. The Green and Reform Parties are also ballot-qualified in Louisiana, but they don’t have any candidates for Congress this year in that state.
Some people think that because U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman is now the nominee of a new party in Connecticut, that he can’t possibly still be a registered Democrat. However, he is still a registered Democrat.
Only eleven states prohibit someone from getting on the general election ballot by petition, if that person is a registered member of a qualified party: California, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
On August 9, the deadline, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman turned in approximately 18,000 signatures, to qualify to be on the November ballot as the nominee of the “Connecticut for Lieberman Party”. The requirement is 7,500.
On August 9, California Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian refused to place several major party nominees on the November ballot. Sonoma County Republican Party v McPherson, 06-cs-01078, Sacramento. The candidates had each polled a substantial number of write-ins in the June 2006 primary, and no one was running against them for their own party’s nomination. But none of them got enough write-ins to fulfill California Election Code section 8605, which requires a write-in total equal to 1% of the vote for that office in the last general election. It is somewhat likely that there will be an appeal.
Judge Ohanesian said that Proposition 60, which is part of the California Constitution, and which says that parties cannot be denied the ability to have the person who got the most votes in their own primary placed on the November ballot, was never intended to apply to this situation. However, California case law is very clear, that legislative intent is irrelevant when the words of the Constitution are clear.