Harris Interactive recently released a poll asking, “If the election of Congress were being held today, would you be voting for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate?” The responses were: Democratic 44%, Republican 31%, “other” 17%, undecided 8%. The poll was taken July 7-10, 2006.
On July 28, a lawsuit was filed to overturn California election code section 8605, which makes it extremely difficult for parties to nominate candidates by write-ins in their own primaries. Sonoma County Republican Central Committee & Raylene Wiesner v McPherson. The case number has not yet been assigned.
In November 2004, the California voters amended the state constitution, to provide that parties cannot be denied the right to place on the November ballot, the person who got the most votes in that party’s primary. Raylene Wiesner was the only candidate in the Republican primary this year for Assembly, 7th district. She was a write-in in that primary. She received 687 write-in votes, but sec. 8605 says that she needed 1,683 write-in votes. No one in any California partisan primary this year received enough votes to be nominated under section 8605, but section 8605 appears invalid, given the new Constitutional provision. The case was filed in Superior Court in Sacramento.
Ohio law permits candidates who get on the November ballot by petition to choose one of two labels, “other-party candidate” or “no-party candidate”. This law, passed in 2002, was opposed by the Secretary of State. Since then, the Secretary of State has used every trick at his command to thwart the law.
This year, there are two minor party candidates on the ballot for Ohio governor, Bob Fitrakis of the Green Party, and Bill Peirce of the Libertarian Party. Both of them have been denied the ability to have “other-party candidate” on the November ballot. This is because, when each turned in his petition, neither volunteered that they desired “other-party candidate” at that moment. No one asked them. Later, when they requested it, the Secretary of State said that since they didn’t ask for it at the moment they turned in their signatures, they will have no label at all.
In November 2004, the two petitioning presidential candidates, Michael Badnarik and Michael Peroutka, did know that they needed to volunteer their choice of a label, and each did have “other-party candidate” printed on the November ballot. However, when the Secretary of State printed his book of official election returns, called “Ohio Election Statistics 2004”, he omitted the label for each of them.
On July 27, New York Supreme Court Judge Emily Goodman held a trial in McKay v Mandell, 109502-2006. The issue is whether the state leadership of the New York Independence Party may expel 94 of its members, on the grounds that they are allied with Lenora Fulani. New York state law permits political parties to expel members deemed to be disloyal to the party. Judge Goodman asked attorneys for the state party leadership why the bulk of their complaints about Fulani extend to remarks she made in 1989, before the Independence Party even existed. She also asked, if Fulani and her supporters have been so disloyal to the party’s principles for so long, why the party (which was formed in 1994) is only now trying to expel them.
Charles Morrison, an independent candidate for US House in Ohio this year, filed a federal lawsuit to get on the November ballot on July 26. Morrison v Colley, 2:06-cv-644. The candidate had enough valid signatures to be on the ballot, but he was removed anyway because he had voted in the Republican primary this year, and had run for party office in that primary.
The Ohio law says that an “independent candidate” is potentially anyone “who claims not to be affiliated with a political party”. It doesn’t define those terms, associate them with any time period, or explain how it is to be enforced. Morrison certifies that he is not affiliated with any party. Ohio does not have registration by party. The lawsuit claims the standard is hopelessly and unconstitutionally vague. The case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge George Smith, a Reagan appointee. In 2004, Judge Smith refused to order Ohio elections officials to count write-in votes for Ralph Nader, even though Ohio permits write-ins. His order said the voters whose votes would never be counted were not being harmed.
