On May 21, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner released a regulation on how new and minor parties should get on the ballot. This action is needed because the old law was declared unconstitutional last year, and the legislature seems disinclined to pass a new law. The regulation requires a petition signed by one-half of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, due November 26, 2007.
The old, unconstitutional law would have required a petition of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, due in early November. The old law would have required 40,228 signatures; the directive requires 20,114.
The regulation also says that a party that only wants to run candidates for presidential elector, president and vice-president, needs 20,114 signatures by August 18, 2008. Using this type of petition permits the party label. The old “independent” petition requirement of 5,000 would still exist, but the only labels permitted are “no-party candidate” and “other-party candidate.”
This is good news for minor parties who want to qualify the whole party, but it is bad news for anyone who just wants to qualify the Presidential candidate because the old number of signatures just for a Presidential candidate was 5,000.
“On May 21, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner released a regulation on how new and minor parties should get on the ballot.”
Isn’t this something that is supposed to be passed by the legislature? Can the Secretary of State come up with a regulation and have it be the de facto law?
When can you start circulating a petition for ballot access in Ohio? Is there a different deadline to qualify as a party than there is as an independent or for just the Presidential candidate?
I wonder how much of the law was invalidated. I know that Ohio has different signature gathering requirements for “major” and “minor” parties.
I can’t recall the definition of “minor party” off hand, but I know that they need less signatures than their major party counterparts. That would be a first in the nation, I’d think, that a D or R would need to get more signatures than a minor party candidate to secure a place on the ballot.
The SOS has authority to issue a directive in the absence of valid law. Legal authority is vested in the SOS as the chief election officer. See R.C. Sec 3501.04 and 3501.05. A link to the R.C. is in the legal links page of my office website: http://www.owenslawoffice.com
Ohio will continue to require only 5,000 signatures for presidential candidates (and candidates for other statewide office), if they use the independent candidate procedure. No change to the Ohio independent candidate procedures is being proposed. As to different types of qualified political parties, Ohio only has one type of qualified political party from a ballot access viewpoint. Either a party is qualified or it isn’t. All qualified parties must nominate by primary. Though Ohio has categories like “minor party” and “intermediate party” and “major party” in its election code, these terms don’t relate to ballot access. They relate to things like whether a party should share in the state income tax check-off.
I forgot to add, Ohio doesn’t care how early a petition starts to circulate. Both the new party petition and the independent candidate petitions can start as soon as the group wants to start. The independent petition permits stand-ins.
Andy – It sounds to me like the August ’08 requirement is for parties to put Pres/VP candidates on the ballot with a party label. Otherwise, they can get on the ballot as “independent” or “other party” candidates with the standard 5,000 signatures … I’m just guessing, though. I couldn’t find the regulation on the SOS Web site. If anyone else does, will you please post a link and/or the text?
The only thing I see here that’s new is the signature requirement for a new party petition. It’s half what it was under the old, invalid law. Everything else appears to be the same as under the old law.
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