Mainstream Media Article About Arizona Ballot Access for Independents is Wildly Inaccurate

Posted on by January 8, 2023
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This NBC News story about Kyrsten Sinema says that if she runs as an independent for U.S. Senate in 2024, “it’s a relatively low threshold as ballot access goes.” It says she would need 43,492 signatures, which is generally accurate, although not precisely so. The true number can’t be known until spring 2024, but the number in the story is close to what it probably will be.

The story goes wrong when it says Arizona has a “relatively low threshold”. The Arizona 2024 statewide independent petition requirement is the fifth largest number of signatures in the nation. The only states with a higher number are Georgia, New York, North Carolina, and Texas. Even Alabama and Indiana, two of the most severe states, require fewer than Arizona. Indiana requires 36,944 which is lower than in past years because of poor turnout in 2022.

New York State Courts Decide the Winner of the 23rd Assembly Race

Posted on by January 7, 2023
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On December 4, New York Assemblymember Stacy Pheffer Amato was declared the winner of the 23rd district race, defeating her Republican opponent by fifteen votes. The race outcome had been in doubt until December 4. See this story.

Key to Pheffer Amato’s win was the discovery that about a dozen voters had cast a regular ballot for her, and had also written her name in. The vote-counting machines had rejected those votes because the machine could not possibly know that the voters had not voted for two different people (thus making their ballots invalid). Instead the voters had voted for her twice. Only human beings, not a machine, were capable of understanding these ballots.

This is similar to what happened in Florida in 2000, when about 7,000 voters voted for Al Gore the normal way and also wrote him in. About 3,000 voters did the same for George W. Bush. The machines rejected all those ballots because the machines thought the voters had voted for two different candidates for the same office, thus making their votes invalid.

No one knew about those Florida votes until November 2001, when a consortium of news organizations recounted all the Florida votes by hand and released the findings. Al Gore had never requested a recount of the overvotes (he only asked that the undervotes be counted).

Alabama Party Petition for 2024 and 2026 Drops Due to Low Turnout Last November

Posted on by January 7, 2023
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Alabama has the nation’s most severe mandatory petition requirement for statewide party recognition, 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. No other state has a mandatory party recognition petition that is above 2% of the last vote cast.

However, the Alabama petition requirement for 2024 and 2026 is now lower than it was for 2020 and 2022. The 2020 and 2022 petition required 51,588 signatures. But the future petition is 42,459 signatures, due to a lower voter turnout in November 2022 than in November 2018.

The word “mandatory” means that the petition is required if a new party is to appear on the ballot. California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, have two procedures for new parties to appear on the ballot. For example, California has a 10% petition, but it is not mandatory, because a group that doesn’t want to use it is free to use the .33% registration procedure.

Little-Known Republican Presidential Candidate Files Lawsuit to Bar Former President Donald Trump from Running in 2024

Posted on by January 6, 2023
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On January 6, John Anthony Castro, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, filed a federal lawsuit, seeking to bar former President Donald J. Trump from seeking the Republican nomination, based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Castro v Trump, s.d., 9:23cv-80015.

A weakness in the case is that the 14th amendment, section 3, doesn’t bar anyone from running for office; it merely declares certain individuals ineligible to hold the office. The response to this lawsuit will probably be that it is not ripe. The case is pro se.

Castro lives in Mansfield, Texas. The lawsuit was filed in the southern district of Florida because Trump lives there. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news. Here is the Complaint. The Complaint makes reference to keeping various persons off ballots in the aftermath of the Civil War, but of course there were no government-printed ballots back then so the issue of “Keeping someone off a ballot” did not arise back then.

U.S. District Court Strikes Down South Carolina U.S. House District Boundaries

Posted on by January 6, 2023
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On January 6, a 3-judge U.S. District Court struck down the South Carolina U.S. House boundaries for the First District as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP v Alexander, 3:21cv-3302. Here is the decision. The court asks the legislature to draw new boundaries by March 31, 2023. If the legislature does not do that, presumably the court will appoint a special master to draw new boundaries.

The decision is from Judge Toby Heytens (a Biden appointee), Mary Geiger Lewis (Obama), and Richard M. Gergel (Obama). Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.