Kansas Law that Forbade Non-Governmental Organizations from Mailing Pre-Filled Applications for a Mail Ballot is Struck Down

Posted on by May 7, 2023
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On May 4, U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Vratil, a Bush Sr. appointee, struck down a 2021 Kansas law that made it illegal for non-governmental organizations to mail out applications for a mail ballot with the voter’s name and address pre-printed on the form. VoteAmerica v Schwab, 2:21cv-2253. Here is the decision.

Kansas permits mail ballots for voters who request a mail ballot. The state said the law was necessary because voters who receive the forms in the mail used the forms, even though the same voter might earlier have already requested a mail ballot. Thus, the state said, the mass mailings caused duplicate applications to be received. But the judge said that the duplication problem was not sufficient to override the First Amendment free speech provision. Also, the judge said the fact that the organization pre-printed the voter’s name and address was not itself a cause of duplicate applications. The organization pre-printed the voter’s name and address on the forms to make it easier for the voter to use the form. The voter must still sign and date the form. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

Law Professor Mark R. Brown Publishes Detailed Account of Ohio’s Long History of Trying to Keep Third Parties Off the Ballot

Posted on by May 7, 2023
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The Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly has this very detailed account of how Ohio has tried to keep minor parties off its ballots, for over 100 years. The article is by Law Professor Mark R. Brown, who has been active in ballot access litigation in Ohio for almost twenty years.

Ohio was unique among the populous states in the 1910’s for its severe ballot access laws. The main problem was that in 1908, Ohio raised the definition of a qualified party to a group that had polled 10% of the vote, at a time when virtually no other states had such a severe definition. It was the only populous state that had no statewide minor party or independent candidates on the ballot in 1918, nor 1922, nor 1930, for example.

The main part of the article concerns the battles in this century, particularly in 2014, when a federal court ordered the Libertarian Party put on the ballot but then Republican officials still managed to keep the party’s gubernatorial candidate off the party’s primary ballot. Because the vote test required 2% (for 2014 only; the ongoing vote test was to be 3%), and only the gubernatorial election counted, this meant that the Libertarian Party had no gubernatorial candidate and thus fell off the ballot. The article also explains the attempts by Republican officials to prevent recognizing the Libertarian Party after the 2016 election, even though its presidential nominee, Gary Johnson, on the ballot as an independent, had met the 3% vote test.

Jordan Marlowe, Mayor of Newberry, Florida, Switches from Libertarian Party to Forward Party

Posted on by May 6, 2023
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On May 3, Jordan Marlowe, Mayor of Newberry, Florida, announced that he had switched his registration from Libertarian to Forward. Marlowe had just been re-elected the previous month. Newberry city elections are non-partisan.

Newberry was first elected in 2017, when he had been a Democrat. He had switched to the Libertarian Party in 2019, when he was re-elected. He was also re-elected while a Libertarian in 2021. In all four of his elections, he was unopposed. The April 11, 2023 city election was cancelled when no one filed to run against the incumbents for any city office.

Newberry is in Alachua County, and has a populatioin of 7,342.

He is the Foward Party’s second Mayor. In November 2021, Dan Rosenthal had been elected First Selectman of Newtown, Connecticut. Rosenthal also won unopposed. “First Selectman” is the equivalent of Mayor in Newtown.

Green Party Wins Majority on a British District Council

Posted on by May 5, 2023
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On May 5, Great Britain elected district councils. In the Mid-Suffolk District Council, the Green Party won a majority of seats. The new council consists of 24 Greens, 6 Conservatives, and 4 Liberal Democrats.

The Mid-Suffolk District is one of five districts in Suffolk County, in the east of England. The district has a population of 96,731. The Green Party now feels optimistic that it can elect a member of Parliament from the area, in the next Parliamentary election. Currently Greens have only one member of the House of Commons.