Initiative 83 has qualified for the ballot in the District of Columbia. It would provide for ranked choice voting. It would also provide that independent voters may choose any party’s primary ballot, although parties would continue to have their own primary ballots and their own nominees.
Friday, August 8, is the last day of the trial in Albany, New York, over whether Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., should be on the New York ballot. He is being challenged on the basis that he filled our his Declaration of Candidacy incorrectly, in the portion that asks for the address of his domicile. Cartwright v Kennedy, Albany Co. Supreme Court.
If he loses this case, and is kept off the ballot, that result would seem to contradict the U.S. Supreme Court unanimous ruling in Trump v Anderson, decided on March 4, 2024. That was the Colorado case on whether Donald Trump should be on the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court had ruled that Trump was ineligible because of the “insurrection” clause in the 14th amendment, and that therefore he should be off the ballot.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court, but it did not contradict the Colorado Supreme Court’s finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection. The U.S. Supreme Court expressed no opinion on that. But it said it didn’t matter, because the relationship between the people and the president is so fundamental, that it would implicitly violate Article Two for various states to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot when other states were putting him or her on the ballot. The Court said that would create an untenable “patchwork.” The Court did not tie that finding to the 14th amendment insurrection clause. Nor did the Court limit its finding to major party presidential candidates.
The same logic ought to apply to Kennedy. If the U.S. Supreme Court could keep a candidate on the ballot even though the trial court finding had been that he had violated a constitutional qualification, surely the same logic would prevent someone from being removed from one state’s ballot on the grounds that he made a mistake on a candidacy qualification form.
The key quote from the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v Anderson is, “The ‘patchwork’ would likely result from state enforcement that would sever the link that the Framers found so crucial between the National Government and the people of the United States as a whole.”
August 7 was the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, in the District of Columbia. Only one petition for president was submitted, for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The qualified parties in D.C. are Democratic, Republican, and Green.
The Libertarian Party failed to get enough votes in D.C. in 2022, so lost its qualified status. The D.C. presidential petition requirement for president is arguably unconstitutional. It requires 4,583 signatures, yet the petition requirement for all district-wide non-presidential petitions is exactly 3,000 signatures. There appears to be no government interest in requiring more signatures for president than for all the other offices, and the U.S. Supreme Court said in Anderson v Celebrezze that jurisdictions ought to go easier on presidential ballot access than ballot access for other office.
In 2020, D.C. only required 500 signatures for president, for that year only, due to covid.
The Libertarian Party has been lobbying the Washington, D.C., city council to lower the presidential requirement, without success so far. The D.C. presidential requirement is the most severe of all 51 jurisdictions that have presidential electors, on a percentage basis.
On August 7, the New Jersey Secretary of State formally accepted the recommendation of her Administrative Law Judge that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., should remain on the ballot. See this story.
Washington state held its top-two primary on August 6. All of the statewide executive posts are up in presidential years. In the race for Commissioner of Public Lands, five Democrats and two Republicans ran. As of August 7, the two Republicans are occupying the first and second positions. However, the votes are not all counted yet. If the trend continues, there will be no Democrat on the November ballot for Commissioner of Public Lands. Here is a link to the election returns.
In the Secretary of State’s race, Damon Townsend used the ballot label “No Labels”, and he placed third with 4.62%. He appears to be the only candidate who appeared on a primary ballot so far this year with that label. The No Labels organization took no steps to block Townsend’s use of that label.
