On June 20, Florida’s Governor signed HB1567, which (among other things) clarifies the definition of “national political party”. A “national political party” can place its presidential nominee on the general election ballot with no petition, but the law in the past did not define “national political party”. The new law says it is a party that is on the ballot in at least one state other than Florida.
Rick Jore, Constitution Party candidate for the Montana legislature last year, was initially declared elected, until the State Supreme Court unseated him by ruling that 6 somewhat irregular ballots that had been counted for him were too ambiguous to be counted at all. Later the Montana Supreme Court ruled that Jore was responsible for paying over $15,000 in attorneys’ fees of the Democratic candidate. This, despite the fact that Jore had not sued anyone. He has just received editorial support from one of Montana’s biggest newspapers.
There are two bills in North Carolina to reduce the number of signatures needed for an independent candidate for statewide office. H 1115 passed the House on May 17. It lowers the number of signatures for a statewide independent from 2% of the number of registered voters (approx. 100,000) to 2% of the last gubernatorial vote (69,734).
A better bill, H88, which lowers the statewide independent requirement to about 17,500, and also lowers the new party petition to the same number, has not made any headway lately but could still pass.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has informed the legislature that he is opposed to the bills that legalize write-in votes even when the voter fails to “X” the box next to the name written in. Senator Debra Bowen will press ahead with her bill on this subject, SB 1050. It has already passed the Senate. The sponsor of the Assembly bill on the same subject (AB 43), Assemblyman Juan Vargas, has given up this year.
On June 10, the US Court of Appeals, DC circuit, reversed the lower court decision that had told the Federal Election Commission to re-visit the question of whether the Commission on Presidential Debates is biased against minor parties. The decision is here.
