2008 PETITIONING FOR PRESIDENT
(updated September 7, 2008)
TOTAL STATES ON THE BALLOT
Libertarian Party
Green Party
Constitution Party
Nader (Indep.)
42
32
33
39
 
     

Anchorage Newspaper Supports Ballot Access Victory

February 14th, 2006

The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s biggest newspaper, editorialized on February 14 in favor of the recent state court decision that keeps the Green Party on the ballot pending a final decision by the court. The editorial said, “The decision reflects sound policy in a representative democracy. If we err, we should err on the side of inclusion.”



Oregon Senator Declares as an Independent for Governor

February 14th, 2006

Oregon State Senator Ben Westlund declared on February 14 that he will be an independent candidate for Governor this year. He changed his voter registration from “Republican” to “independent”.

Texas Independents Better Funded than Democrats

February 12th, 2006

Texas independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Strayhorn had over $8,000,000 in her campaign treasury in January 2006, whereas no Democrat running for Governor of Texas had even as much as $200,000. Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry had $11,500,000 on hand in January.

Professor Fights Pennsylvania’s Loyalty Oath for Candidates

February 12th, 2006

Professor Gerald Massey, former chairman of the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh, is actively fighting Pennsylvania’s loyalty oath for candidates. Pennsylvania requires all candidates for state and local office to sign a statement affirming that they are not “subversive” persons. The statute does not define the term. Massey was elected to the Stoneboro, Pennsylvania city council as a write-in candidate last November. The law requires him to sign the oath before being sworn in, but he refused, and he was seated anyway. He has written letters to his legislators, asking them to introduce a bill to repeal the law. Such laws were held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous 1974 decision, but legislatures in the six states that still have them are reluctant to repeal them.

Utah Electoral College Initiative

February 11th, 2006

Chad Curtis of Orem, Utah, is proposing to circulate an initiative to split Utah’s electoral votes, proportionately to the popular vote. Thus, if Utah has 6 electoral votes (which it will certainly have after 2011), a presidential candidate who polled one-sixth of the popular vote would get one electoral vote. A similar initiative appeared on the Colorado ballot in November 2004, but it was fatally flawed because it didn’t specify whether it would go into effect for 2004 or not. Chad Curtis can be reached at cpc5blw@hotmail.com, or 801-787-3919.

Scholarly Study Boosts IRV

February 11th, 2006

Chris Jerdonek has published “Ranked Choice Voting and Voter Turnout in San Francisco’s 2005 Election”, a scholarly article that shows that ranked choice voting (also called Instant-Runoff Voting) more than doubled turnout in San Francisco’s citywide election for Assessor-Recorder in 2005. Without Ranked Choice Voting, the election would have been decided with a run-off in December. Past data for San Francisco December run-offs (for relatively unimportant office) supports the author’s conclusion. See the article on the webpage of www.fairvote.org.

Alaska Ballot Access Victory

February 9th, 2006

On February 9, a lower state court issued an injunction, prohibiting the state from removing the Green Party from the ballot until after July 2006. This almost certainly means that the same court will eventually rule that the definition of “political party” is unconstitutionally severe. Green Party of Alaska v State, 3AN-05-10787.

The existing law requires a party to either have registration membership equal to 3% of the last vote cast, or to have polled 3% for Governor in the last election, if the last election was a gubernatorial election. If the last election was a presidential election, then (if it doesn’t have the needed registrations) it must have polled 3% for U.S. Senator. Ironically, however, if it polled 3% for U.S. Senator in a gubernatorial election year, that doesn’t count.

The existing law is also somewhat irrational for basing the registration alternative on the percentage of the vote cast. Since there is always a much larger turnout in presidential years than in gubernatorial years, this means a party needs about 9,000 registrants in the two years following a presidential election, but only about 7,000 registrants in the two years following a gubernatorial election.

Cal. Supreme Court to Hear Prop. 60 Case

February 9th, 2006

The California Supreme Court will hear the Proposition 60 case on March 8. Californians for an Open Primary v McPherson, S126780. This is the lawsuit over whether Prop. 60 is really part of the California Constitution. The voters passed it 3-1 in November 2004. However, its opponents claim it should be cancelled, because they feel the legislature had no right to put it on the ballot.

Prop. 60 says “A political party that participated in the partisan election shall not be denied the ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate who received, at the primary election, the highest vote among that party’s candidates.” Prop. 60 enhances the ability of California’s qualified minor parties to nominate anyone they wish for public office. Currently, no one can have his or her name placed on a primary ballot if that person has been a member of another party during the 23 months before a general election. This prevents minor parties from recruiting desirable candidates, in many cases. Individuals such as Cindy Sheehan who might want to run in a minor party primary are disqualified because they have been major party members in the past period. However, a loophole exists for write-in candidates in a partisan primary. Anyone, regardless of past or even present party membership, can be a write-in candidate in a partisan primary.

However, this loophole for minor parties has been blocked by another law that requires a write-in candidate in a partisan primary to receive about 100,000 write-ins for statewide office, or 2,000 for U.S. House. Qualified minor parties seldom have enough members to meet these thresholds. But under Prop. 60, by the literal language, a party that desires a lower threshold ought to be able to demand one. Assuming the California Supreme Court rules that Prop. 60 is indeed part of the California Constitution, the Libertarian and Peace & Freedom Parties are likely to sue to exercise their ability to adopt their own lower primary threshold.

The California Supreme Court must issue its opinion no more than 90 days after the hearing, so a decision is likely in May or early June.

9th Circuit Hearing in Washington State Primary Case Goes Well

February 7th, 2006

On February 6, the 9th circuit heard arguments in Washington State’s appeal of the “top two” lawsuit. Last year, a US District Court had ruled that “top two” violates the First Amendment rights of association of political parties. The state appealed. However, two of the three judges seemed skeptical of the state’s case. They seemed to feel that if Washington wants to hold a “top two” primary, the state needs to convert to non-partisan elections, and keep party labels entirely off the ballot.

Secretary of State Relents, Peace & Freedom Party Back on Calif. Ballot

February 3rd, 2006

The Peace and Freedom Party was added back to the June primary ballot today, two days after the Secretary of State Bruce McPhersoner ruled the party didn’t have enough registered voters to qualify.

McPherson had stunned observers when he invented a new interpretation of the rule regarding ballot access.

Oakland attorney Bob Evans, the party central committee’s recording secretary credited Richard Winger with providing McPherson historical information on the law’s application.

Posted by Eric Garris

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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.
    [Added:000823]

The newsletter is published by and copyright by Richard Winger.