New Mexico Presidential Recount Hearing

August 29th, 2005

The New Mexico Supreme Court is hearing Cobb & Badnarik v New Mexico Canvassing Board (#29095) on August 29, 2005. The issue is whether the two 2004 presidential candidates needed to submit a deposit of $114,000, or $1,140,000, in order to request a recount of last year’s presidential vote.



Interesting New York Ballot Access Decision

August 26th, 2005

On August 25, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis, a Clinton appointee, upheld a New York state ballot access law. Specifically, he upheld the law that requires a candidate for citywide office in New York city to obtain 7,500 signatures. When a candidate is seeking a place on a party primary ballot, he or she needs 7,500 signatures, or 5% of that party’s members, whichever is less. A Republican city councilman, Thomas Ognibene, tried to run for Mayor in the Republican primary, but he only collected 8,116 signatures, and only 5,848 were valid. He argued that the requirement is too difficult, but the judge upheld the law. However, the judge was critical of the law, and seemed to say that if it weren’t for bad ballot access precedents from the U.S. Supreme Court itself, he would have invalidated it. The case is Ulrich v Mane, 05-cv-3911, eastern district (Brooklyn). Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this post.

Calif. Write-in Bill Advances

August 26th, 2005

On August 25, Senate Bill 1015 passed the California Assembly Appropriations Committee. It legalizes write-in votes in which the voter forgets to “X” the box next to the name written in. The vote was 13-4.

Degraded North Carolina Bill Passes House

August 24th, 2005

During the early morning hours of August 24, the North Carolina House passed H88, the ballot access bill. Unfortunately, it was amended so that it does more harm than good. The bill does lower the number of signatures needed for a statewide independent from 2% of the number of registered voters to 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, but this is required by a court decision last year anyway. The only other improvement it makes is to lower the vote test (for a party to remain on the ballot) from 10% to 7%. But it makes existing law more restrictive by moving the petition deadline two months earlier, and requiring the nominees of parties that nominate by convention to pay filing fees. The bill cannot pass this year anyway, since the Senate has gone home. However, the bill remains alive and could pass next year.

North Carolina Bill Advances

August 23rd, 2005

H88, the best ballot access bill in North Carolina, passed out of the House Finance Committee today overwhelmingly. This is the bill that lowers the statewide minor party and independent candidate petitions to one-half of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote (approximately 17,500 signatures). The bill will probably pass if only the legislature stays in session long enough.

Arkansas Secretary of State Won’t Follow Attorney General Opinion

August 23rd, 2005

A few weeks ago, the Arkansas Attorney General issued an opinion denying that it is legal for parties to circulate a petition during odd years. However, the Secretary of State’s legal advisor says that the Secretary of State does not agree with that opinion, and will not follow it.

Chicago Ballot Access Eased

August 23rd, 2005

On August 22, Illinois House Bill 1968 was signed into law. It lowers the number of signatures to get on the ballot for Mayor of Chicago from 25,000 signatures to 12,500 signatures. This is the easiest petition requirement (for candidates who are not Democrats or Republicans) to run for that office since 1931. The requirement between 1931 and 1979 was 5% of the last vote cast (usually about 50,000), and in 1979 it had been lowered to 25,000.

North Carolina Libertarians to Sue over Ballot Access

August 22nd, 2005

On August 22, the North Carolina State Board of Elections removed the Libertarian Party from the ballot. In response, the party plans to bring a lawsuit, charging that the state’s ballot access laws violate the State Constitution. Article I, sec. 10, of the North Carolina Constitution says “All elections shall be free”.

Current ballot access law requires a party to obtain 69,734 signatures, unless it polled 10% for president or governor at the last election. Yet U.S. history shows that states that require as few as 5,000 signatures never have a crowded ballot, where “crowded ballot” is defined as a ballot with more than 8 parties or candidates. North Carolina only required 10,000 signatures for a new party to get on the ballot before 1981.

Constitution Party to contest special congressional election

August 20th, 2005

Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen Project, will be the Constitution Party’s candidate for congress in the 48th California district on October 4 (in California, the Constitution Party is called the American Independent Party). The 48th district is in southern Orange County. Gilchrist’s announcement on August 20 received a great deal of publicity, since he is well-known. If no one gets 50% of the vote on October 4, the top vote-getter from each party will run in a run-off on December 6.

17 candidates will be on the October ballot: 10 Republicans, 4 Democrats, Gilchrist, Libertarian Bruce Cohen, and Green Bea Tiritilli. Several other candidates failed to turn in enough signatures.

North Carolina Senate Deletes Modest Ballot Access Improvement

August 15th, 2005

On Saturday, August 13, the North Carolina Senate passed HB1115. However, before passing it, they deleted the modest ballot access improvement that had been contained in that bill.

HB1115 is a very large bill, containing all the election law changes desired by the State Board of Elections. The State Board of Elections wrote into the bill a provision lowering the number of signatures for a statewide independent, from 2% of the registered voters, to 2% of the last gubernatorial vote. The State Board of Elections did this because last year a federal court struck down the existing requirement, and the State Board wants to eliminate laws that have been declared unconstitutional.

Although the House had passed HB1115 in the form requested by the State Board of Elections, the Senate deleted this part of the bill.

In the meantime, H88, which lowers both types of petition to one-half of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, has not made any headway recently, although it is still alive.

The Senate’s action on August 13 can be interpreted in two ways. The optimistic way is: if the Senate is actually more sympathetic to more comprehensive ballot access liberalization, it might have deleted the State Board’s provision to signal its attitude that it prefers the H88 approach. The pessimistic way is: if the Senate is vehemently against any ballot access reform at all, it might have deleted the State Board’s provision just to show its displeasure with last year’s court decision. Or perhaps the Senate still doesn’t know what to do about ballot access, so it is just postponing doing anything until next year.

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Welcome to the OFFICIAL online home of Ballot Access News, a non-partisan newsletter reporting on the trials and tribulations of folks trying to put candidates on the ballot in the United States of America. There are many surprisingly restrictive ballot access laws in this country, which the average voter has no knowledge or conception of; part of our purpose here (besides reporting on progress made) is to report on these restrictive ballot access laws so that more people are aware of them. I hope you find these materials interesting and exciting; if you do, you can support the newsletter by subscribing!

Ballot Access News is edited and published by Richard Winger, the nation's leading expert on ballot access legal issues.

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  • Politics, Soviet-style by S. Philip Gordon, regarding recent ballot access issues in Georgia – the US state, not the Russian territority!

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  • Here's information on Presidential Ballot Access as well as the vote totals of recent Presidential elections.

  • Here are some other sites which may also be of interest:

    Project Vote-Smart

    Project Vote Smart is a citizens' organization dedicated to serving all Americans with accurate and unbiased information for electoral decision-making. It was inaugerated in 1992 by former US Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and other leaders. Its webpage offers information about all ballot-listed candidates for all federal and state office.
    [Added:040729]

    The ACE Project
    An interesting site concerning itself with the "Administration and Cost of Elections", including issues of fairness and regulatory approaches in various countries. They seem to be almost blind to the ways that third parties in the USA are harmed by campaign finance rules crafted for the problems characteristic of the larger parties, or the ways that third parties would be disenfranchised by various proposed rules, but this is nevertheless a useful resource, particularly for the international comparisons it makes.
    [Added:001206]

    "Unofficial" B.A.N. Page

    At first, it looks like there's not much here. But then you follow the "Charts" link, and click on one of the listed candidates, and you'll get some truly wonderful nationwide maps of voting patterns.
    [Checked:991014]

    ThirdPartyNews.net

    A site that covers news about minor parties.
    [Checked:060414]

    Third Party Central

    Collects lots of good information and links relating to various third parties into one convenient location. Nice set of writings on why one should vote third-party.
    [Checked:991014]

    Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

    A surprisingly complete listing of votes cast in Presidential elections, including numerous third-party candidates and nice maps of vote distribution by state and (on the individual state pages) by county.
    [New-URL:010309]

    D.C.'s Political Report

    Very good presentation of candidate and party information, including virtually every known third-party group in the USA. Election results, candidate information, etc.
    [Updated:991214]

    Initiative For Texas

    A group trying to establish the right to Initiative and Referendum in Texas. Their work has intriguing parallels and overlaps with ballot access work. Every page at the site seems to have some music on it, which can get annoying after awhile, but otherwise it's an interesting site.
    [Checked:991014]

    Center for Voting and Democracy

    Folks concerned with alternative voting systems, and related issues, from a moderately leftist perspective. Useful articles describing how better systems of voting and electing actually work.
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