LOPEZ TORRES BRIEFS FILED IN U.S. SUPREME COURT
COURT WILL BE FORCED TO CONFRONT BALLOT ACCESS INCONSISTENCY

Briefs have now been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in New York Bd. of Elections v Lopez Torres, no. 06-766. The hearing will be October 3, 2007. This will be the first time since 1992 that the Supreme Court will have considered the number of signatures needed to get a candidate or a party on the ballot. The Court has been ducking ballot access since 1992. Since that year, it has refused to hear cases from California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and Texas.

The reason ballot access jurisprudence is so disorderly is that the Court has contradicted itself, and has failed to resolve the contradiction. It said in 1971 in Jenness v Fortson that it is O.K. for a state to require a candidate or a party to submit petitions signed by 5% of the number of registered voters, to get on the ballot. Yet, since then, the Court has said there is "no litmus test" and that laws that are seldom used are too difficult, and should be struck down.

Some lower courts follow the first path. If a petition is equal to, or less than, 5% of the number of registered voters, they say it must be constitutional, no matter that no one has succeeded in complying with it in years. This is the approach taken by the 11^th circuit on June 29, 2007, in the Alabama case (see next story). It was also the approach taken by the 3^rd circuit last year, when it upheld Pennsylvania ballot access laws. It was the approach taken by a U.S. District Court in New Mexico last year. And this approach was taken by the Oklahoma State Appeals court this year, when it upheld the Oklahoma petition for new parties.

Other lower courts take the second path. They note that no one has managed to qualify in years, so they hold the law unconstitutional.

This is the approach taken last year by the 6^th circuit when it threw out the Ohio petition for new parties. Also last year, the 7^th circuit took this approach when it voided Illinois’ law for independent candidates for the legislature. And it is the approach taken last year by a U.S. District Court, when it invalidated the Arkansas law for new parties. It was also the approach taken by the 8^th circuit in 1980, when it tossed out North Dakota’s petition for new parties.

The briefs in New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres put this contradiction in front of the Supreme Court. The law being challenged in New York requires a petition of 500 signatures or 5% of a party’s registration (whichever is less) for a candidate for Delegate to a Judicial Nominating Convention. Because slates are needed from each Assembly district in the Judicial district, the total number of signatures (depending on which Judicial District is involved) varies from 9,000 to 24,000 signatures.

The historical record shows Delegate candidates supported by the major party organizations always comply with the petition, but candidates not supported by the major party organizations almost always fail. The lower courts had invalidated the requirements. The U.S. District Court had concluded, "The process of placing delegates at the convention is so difficult, except in isolated instances in a single Assembly district, that only the party organization can accomplish it (page 249)."

The Second Circuit had agreed, finding, "These burdens, taken together, thrust upon judicial candidates ‘the Procrustean requirement of establishing elaborate primary election machinery’, making it virtually impossible for a candidate to satisfy this series of election laws."

Lopez Torres Briefs Filed by New York State and its Allies

Briefs filed in defense of New York’s petition requirement make these points about the petition requirement:

The amicus brief filed by the Mid-Manhatten Branch of the NAACP and the Metropolitan Black Bar Association says, "This Court has repeatedly upheld more demanding signature requirements for ballot access than those at issue here – between 9,000 and 24,000 signatures over a 37-day period. See Norman v Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 295 (1992)(‘our precedents foreclose the argument’ that collecting 25,000 signatures from one suburban district is unduly burdensome); Storer v Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 740 (1974)(‘standing alone, gathering 325,000 signatures in 24 days would not appear to be an impossible burden’); White, 415 U.S. at 783 (22,000 signatures in 55 days ‘does not appear either impossible or impractical’)."

The amicus brief filed by the Republican National Committee says, "The requirements to be placed on the ballot are not onerous – indeed, the only relevant requirement of note is that the delegate candidate gather 500 valid signatures from party members residing in his or her district…The judicial candidate would have to find a dedicated delegate candidate in each assembly district – between 9 and 24 candidates in all. The judicial candidate would need to collect between 9,000 and 24,000 signatures to get all those delegate candidates on the ballot…There is nothing to stop rank-and-file members from running to be convention delegates."

The brief for the state Attorney General says, "The state makes it easy for any interested voter to run as a delegate…The barriers to ballot access for this primary are quite low."

The brief for the New York Republican Party and the Manhatten Democratic Party says, "Delegate candidates have an unburdened path to seek that position…Delegate candidates may enter to run in the delegate primary simply by collecting 500 signatures from registered party voters. This modest signature requirement poses no significant burden and has repeatedly been upheld. See Prestia v O’Connor, 178 F.3d 86 (2^nd Cir. 1999)." It upheld a law that candidates for U.S. House need 1,250 signatures to get on a primary ballot.

Lopez Torres Briefs Filed by Lopez Torres and her Allies

The brief filed by Lopez Torres herself says, "Each slate of delegates in each Assembly District or part of an Assembly District must file its own 500-plus signature petition. Delegate petitions may be signed only by registered party members actually residing in the particular Assembly District. Each party member may sign only one petition. Thus, the number of available signatories shrinks each time a party member signs a designating petition. Further, petition circulators have a 37-day window to gather petitions…Petition signatures are routinely and successfully challenged on numerous technical grounds. History teaches that to withstand such legal attacks, successful petitions must contain two to three times the legal minimum of signatures."

The brief filed by Brooklyn’s District Attorney, Charles Hynes, says, "New York’s extraordinarily burdensome and opaque petitioning requirements to become a convention delegate effectively prevent all but those candidates who have been anointed by party leaders from offering themselves as candidates…The ballot access requirements for the judicial delegate election are designed for no purpose other than to allow party leaders to exercise complete control over the judicial district convention... The New York Commission on Government Integrity found that the state’s restrictive ballot access rules often rendered voters’ right to determine their parties’ candidates meaningless."

The ACLU brief says, "In Storer v Brown, 415 U.S. 724 (1974), this Court suggested that the constitutionality of laws that restrict candidate access to the ballot could be evaluated by asking whether, under the laws in question, ‘a reasonably diligent independent candidate’ could secure ballot access, or will it be only rarely that the unaffiliated candidate will succeed in getting on the ballot?"

The ACLU brief’s footnote 5 says that the "diligent candidate" standard was also used by the Supreme Court in Mandel v Bradley. The footnote adds, "Although infrequently invoked, the ‘reasonably diligent candidate’ standard has never been repudiated by this Court. And every Circuit Court that has addressed this standard continues to treat it as good law." The footnote then lists U.S. Court of Appeals decisions that have mentioned the "diligent candidate" standard. They include ballot access cases from Puerto Rico, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Illinois. The footnote could have also cited cases from North Dakota and Ohio.

A brief filed by John Dunne, former Assistant Attorney General to President George H. W. Bush and a former New York State Senator, says, "This Court has long adhered to the practice of making ‘pragmatic or functional assessment’ of the burdens on voters, instead of focusing on artificial, theoretical constructs…It is necessary to investigate how those systems actually function in the real world, not just in theory…A challenger candidate for a Supreme Court justiceship would essentially have to run as many as 24 separate petition drives – one for each Assembly district. This would require an absolutely Herculean effort."

A brief filed by two political scientists (Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein), the Reform Institute, and the Campaign Legal Center, says, "As in the former Soviet Union, where voters had a ‘choice’ of a single candidate picked by the ruling Communist Party, voters in New York’s Supreme Court primary enjoy all of democracy’s ceremonies without any of its substance."

A brief filed by the Washington Legal Foundation says, "If several of the more severe burdens imposed by the New York system were removed (e.g., the excessive number of signatures that delegates are required to gather, the extremely tight time frame for collection of signatures, and the strict limitation on the number of delegates), it might well be that the revised system could pass constitutional muster."

A brief filed by ten election law professors says, "New York State law makes access to the primary ballot contingent on compliance with complex signature and residency requirements that must be satisfied in a relatively short statutory period…State law requires signatures from 500 residents from each assembly district who have not already signed a petition for another qualified candidate, a requirement that vastly limits the pool of signatories, routinely renders many signatures invalid, and functionally requires that those seeking access to the ballot obtain far more than the mandated 500 signatures."

A brief filed by former New York city Mayor Edward Koch reminds us that Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary defined democracy to be "the right to vote for the man of another man’s choice." Koch also pokes fun at the Republican National Committee brief for saying that "there is nothing to stop rank-and-file party members from running to be convention delegates." Koch says, "there is ‘nothing’ to stop them but a difficult petitioning process."

The brief of New York city, the New York State Bar, the New York City Bar, and the Fund for Modern Courts, also reminds the Court of what it said in Storer v Brown, that ballot access laws should be evaluated by how often they are used.

A brief filed by a group of former New York State Judges and the American Judicature Society mentions that the Feerick Commission (a panel of experts) recommended that the judicial election system be modified to reduce the number of signatures required to run for delegate.

On June 29, the 11^th circuit upheld Alabama’s ballot access law for new and minor parties, and for non-presidential independent candidates. That law, first put into effect in 1997, requires a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The petition has only been used once for statewide office, by the Libertarian Party in 2000. Swanson v Worley, 06-13643. Currently, the requirement is 37,513 signatures. The plaintiff hasn’t decided whether to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review.

The 11^th circuit also upheld the new deadline. The new deadline requires signatures to be submitted no later than primary election day (the first week in June). In 2001 the legislature had made the deadline worse. The old deadline had been in mid-July. With the old deadline, parties and candidates were able to get large number of signatures at the polls on primary election day. The only successful statewide attempt to meet the 3% standard had collected over half the signatures on primary day. The new deadline seems to have been passed by the legislature to put a stop to that useful technique. It is obvious that the state doesn’t need a deadline that early for checking signatures, since the state is able to cope with an independent presidential deadline in September of election years.

The 11^th circuit decision is of the lowest quality. It fails to mention any of the favorable precedents; it only mentions unfavorable ones. This kind of a decision can legitimately referred to as a dishonest decision.

The decision claims that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a June petition deadline in Jenness v Fortson in 1971. It is true that the Georgia law upheld in that case had a June deadline, but the plaintiffs, the Socialist Workers Party of Georgia, had not complained about the deadline. Justice John Paul Stevens even wrote separately in Mandel v Bradley to warn lower courts from assuming that Jenness means the Court had upheld June deadlines, because that was not an issue in that case. The 11^th circuit did not mention Mandel v Bradley.

The 11^th circuit said that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld 5% and 3% petitions in American Party of Texas v White, in 1974. The truth is that the Texas 3% and 5% petitions only related to candidates for district office (Texas had a 1% petition for statewide office), and Texas set a cap of 500 signatures on all district petitions. The 11^th circuit did not mention the Texas cap, nor the fact that the Texas statewide petition was 1%.

The decision was by Judge Frank Hull. She had previously upheld Georgia’s 5% petition requirement for U.S. House, even though (as was pointed out to her) no minor party candidate had qualified for U.S. House under that requirement since before 1943, the year it was passed.

On June 8, the lawsuit Groene v Seng was settled successfully. It concerned the ability of petition circulators to work on sidewalks in front of libraries, and sidewalks in front of government offices. The Nebraska cities of Grand Island, Omaha, and Lincoln, and Douglas County, all voluntarily agreed to tell their police and other employees that circulators may gather signatures in those places. The settlement also includes sidewalks that lead up to library doors.

The case had been filed in federal court in 2006, no. 4:06cv3153. The attorneys who filed the case received a total of $100,000 in attorneys’ fees from the cities and the county.

On July 11, some Idaho Republican legislators and party officers filed a federal lawsuit to overturn Idaho’s open primary. Beck v Ysursa, no. 07-299. The plaintiffs do not demand that Idaho ask voters to choose a party on registration forms. Instead, they would accept a separate Republican primary ballot, with a record kept of which voters choose the Republican primary ballot. Voters would need to check a box saying they are Republicans.

The July 1 B.A.N. reported that the Iowa Secretary of State had informally settled the lawsuit over whether voters may register into unqualified parties. That settlement was formalized on July 18.

Under the settlement, any group that has placed candidates on the ballot during the last four years, and which submits a petition of 850 voters asking that the group be recognized for Voter Registration record-keeping purposes, will be treated as though it were a qualified party in the registration records. From now on, the Iowa voter registration form will include a blank line in the "political party" question. That means any voter can register into any party. If the party is not qualified for its own primary, but it has submitted the 850 signatures and has recently placed a nominee on the ballot, will be given a list of the names and addresses of voters who register into it.

The Iowa Green and Libertarian Parties expect to complete the 850-signature petition in the next few months.

Now, the only state that asks voters to choose a party on voter registration forms, and that doesn’t provide a blank line, is Kansas. Ironically, the Kansas Libertarian Party sued Kansas over this in 1988. Kansas gave in and printed a blank line on the form. But once the Libertarian Party became a qualified party in 1990, the Secretary of State removed the blank line from the form.

States that provide a blank line, but which won’t provide a tally of how many registered voters there are in any party unless the party is entitled to a primary, are Arizona, New Hampshire, and South Dakota.

The Iowa lawsuit had been filed by the ACLU in 2005. This is the fifth lawsuit that the ACLU has won for minor parties since 2001. The others have been in Virginia, Kansas, and Arkansas (two cases). The ACLU is also currently suing New Mexico over ballot access, and is suing Connecticut over discriminatory public funding.

On July 5, Connecticut SB 131l was signed into law. It expands the ability of two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. Fusion has always been legal in Connecticut for qualified parties, but since 1981 it has not been legal for unqualified parties. In Connecticut, a party must have polled 1% in the last election for any particular office, for it to be a qualified party for that particular office. A typical minor party in Connecticut is ballot-qualified for a few offices and not for most offices.

Therefore, under the old law, a minor party could only cross-endorse the nominee of another party, if that minor party had polled 1% of the vote for that office in the last election. But under SB 1311, if a party is ballot-qualified for just one office anywhere in the state (assuming that office is up for election that year), then it may engage in fusion for any statewide office. It may also use fusion for a U.S. House race if it is qualified for any state legislative race inside that U.S. House district. And if it is qualified for a statewide office that is up that year, it can use fusion for any office in the state. Thus, the Green and Libertarian Parties will be able to use fusion for all offices in 2010, since they polled over 1% for a few statewide offices in 2006.

No state legislature in any other state has expanded fusion in at least 70 years. Instead, state legislatures have been eliminating it. It was once legal in every state, but had been banned in most states by 1910, and it has continued to shrink since then.

New York partially restricted fusion in 1947. California virtually banned it in 1959. Pennsylvania substantially restricted it in 1985. Arkansas and South Dakota banned it in 1997.

Advocates of fusion tried and failed to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court that the First Amendment (the Free Association part) requires all states to permit fusion. The Court rejected that argument in 1997 in Timmons v Twin Cities Area New Party, by a vote of 6-3.

Some minor party activists don’t see the full benefits of fusion. Most people think about fusion in terms of a minor party cross-endorsing a major party member. But it works in reverse as well. When fusion is legal, minor party members can sometimes win the nomination of their own party, and one of the major parties as well. This aspect of fusion made it possible for the Libertarian Party to elect four state legislators in New Hampshire in 1992, two in New Hampshire in 1994, and one in Vermont in 1998. It also helped the Prohibition Party to elect its only member to Congress, from California, in 1914 (Charles Randall, the Prohibition Party Congressman, was elected three times, and each time he was the Prohibition nominee and the Democratic nominee as well.

Some people oppose fusion because they observe that some political parties in New York, such as the Liberal Party in the 1990’s, and possibly today’s Independence Party, stand for nothing except getting patronage jobs for their leaders. They do this by courting favor with one or both of the major parties, in effect bartering their endorsements for jobs.

However, this hasn’t happened in other states with fusion, nor has it happened with all the qualified minor parties that use fusion in New York. New York’s problems could be partly solved if the state would put political parties on the ballot in random order, rather than always determining ballot order for parties based how many votes each party got in the last gubernatorial election.

S1311 is one of only two election law bills that passed the Connecticut legislature this year (the other bill that passed moved the presidential primary from March to February). The fusion part of S1311 had originally been introduced as a separate bill, H7260. Its provisions were then added into S1311.

Since the Working Families Party is already ballot-qualified in many state legislative districts in Connecticut, it will be able to cross-endorse in all statewide and U.S. House races in the state in 2008.

On June 30, the Delaware House defeated HB 177. That bill would have outlawed fusion. Currently, Delaware has unrestricted fusion, and even has the type of fusion in which a voter can choose which party label to vote for, when voting for a candidate who is the nominee of two parties.

The defeat of the bill was surprising. Democrats had made it their number one priority this year to pass the bill. Republican legislative leaders had initially also favored the bill. But when they saw how passionately Democrats wanted to eliminate fusion, they changed their minds and voted to keep fusion. A few Democrats abstained. The final vote was 17-19.

Arizona: Ralph Nader’s lawsuit against the state law making it illegal for out-of-staters to circulate an independent presidential candidate petition, and against the early June petition deadline, will be heard in the 9^th circuit in October.

Indiana: an independent candidate for city council in Highland has sued in state court to get back on the ballot. He was removed because he had voted in the Republican primary, but Indiana has no law that says an independent must not have voted in the primary. Herak v Lake County Election Board. A decision is likely soon.

Massachusetts: this state says incumbents are always placed first on the ballot. A lawsuit challenging that law had a hearing a few weeks ago. The state argues it is moot since the election is over. If the judge disagrees with that argument, he will set a trial date. White v Galvin, Plymouth Co., ca04-427.

New Mexico: the Libertarian Party’s ballot access lawsuit will have a hearing in the 10^th circuit on October 1.

Oklahoma: on June 14, a new lawsuit was filed in federal court, challenging the law that no out-of-state resident may circulate an initiative petition. Term Limits v Savage, 5:07-cv-680.

STATE	REQUIREMENTS		SIGNATURES COLLECTED				DEADLINES
	FULL PARTY	CAND	LIB'T	GREEN	CONSTI	WK FAM	Party Due	Indep. Due
Alabama	37,513	5,000	0	0	0	0	June 3	Sep. 8
Alaska	(reg) 7,124	#3,128	already on	*3,489	0	0	Aug. 6	Aug. 6
Ariz.	20,449	est. #21,500	already on	*7,000	0	0	Mar. 6	June 4
Arkansas	10,000	#1,000	*100	0	*120	0	June 30	Aug. 4
Calif.	(reg) 88,991	158,372	already on	already on	already on	0	Dec. 31, 07	Aug. 8
Colorado	(reg) 1,000	Pay $500	already on	already on	already on	0	May 1	June 17
Conn.	no procedure	#7,500	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	Aug. 6
Delaware	est. (reg) 290	est. 5,800	already on	already on	already on	already on	Aug. 12	July 15
D.C.	no procedure	est. #3,900	can’t start	already on	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	Aug. 19
Florida	be organized	104,334	already on	already on	already on	0	Sep. 2	July 15
Georgia	44,089	#42,489	already on	3,500	0	0	July 8	July 8
Hawaii	663	4,291	already on	0	60	0	Apr. 3	Sep. 5
Idaho	11,968	5,984	already on	can’t start	already on	can’t start	Aug. 29	Aug. 25
Illinois	no procedure	#25,000	can’t start	already on	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	June 26
Indiana	no procedure	#32,742	already on	0	0	0	- - -	June 23
Iowa	no procedure	#1,500	0	0	0	0	- - -	Aug. 15
Kansas	16,994	5,000	already on	0	0	0	June 2	Aug. 4
Kentucky	no procedure	#5,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	Sep. 2
La.	(reg) 1,000	pay $500	already on	already on	47	0	May 22	Sep. 2
Maine	27,544	#4,000	0	already on	0	0	Dec 14, 07	Ag 15
Maryland	10,000	est. 32,500	already on	already on	0	0	Aug. 4	Aug. 4
Mass.	est. (reg) 40,500	#10,000	19,253	already on	65	already on	Feb. 1	July 29
Michigan	38,024	38,024	already on	already on	already on	0	July 17	July 17
Minnesota	110,150	#2,000	0	0	0	0	July 15	Sep. 9
Mississippi	be organized	1,000	already on	already on	already on	0	Jan. 10	Sep. 5
Missouri	10,000	10,000	already on	0	*6,000	0	July 29	July 29
Montana	5,000	#5,000	already on	*550	already on	0	Mar. 13	July 30
Nebraska	5,921	2,500	7,100	already on	already on	0	Aug. 1	Aug. 26
Nevada	5,746	5,746	already on	already on	already on	0	July 3	July 3
N. Hamp.	12,524	#3,000	0	0	0	0	Aug. 6	Aug. 6
New Jersey	no procedure	#800	0	0	0	0	- - -	July 28
New Mex.	2,794	16,764	already on	already on	unclear	0	Apr. 1	June 4
New York	no procedure	#15,000	can't start	can't start	can't start	already on	- - -	Aug. 19
No. Car.	69,734	69,734	*66,000	14,000	100	0	May 16	June 12
No. Dakota	7,000	#4,000	already on	0	already on	0	Apr. 11	Sep. 5
Ohio	20,114	5,000	2,000	0	0	0	Nov 26 07	Aug. 21
Oklahoma	46,324	43,913	400	0	0	0	May 1	July 15
Oregon	20,640	18,356	already on	already on	already on	already on	Aug. 26	Aug. 26
Penn.	no procedure	est. #27,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	Aug. 1
Rhode Isl.	18,557	#1,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	May 30	Sep. 5
So. Caro.	10,000	10,000	already on	already on	already on	already on	May 4	July 15
So. Dakota	8,389	3,356	*300	0	*5,500	0	Mar. 25	Aug. 5
Tennessee	45,254	25	0	0	0	0	unsettled	Aug. 21
Texas	43,991	74,108	already on	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	May 27	May 12
Utah	2,000	#1,000	*1,850	300	already on	0	Feb. 15	Sep. 2
Vermont	be organized	#1,000	already on	already on	0	0	Jan. 1	Sep. 12
Virginia	no procedure	#10,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	Aug. 22
Wash.	no procedure	#1,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	- - -	July 26
West Va.	no procedure	#15,118	0	*already on	*1,200	0	- - -	Aug. 1
Wisconsin	10,000	#2,000	already on	already on	can’t start	can’t start	June 2	Sep. 2
Wyoming	3,868	3,868	already on	0	0	0	June 2	Aug. 25
TOTAL STATES ON			26	*20	14	5	~

#partisan label is permitted (other than "independent").
* means entry changed since July 1, 2007 B.A.N.
"Wk Fam" means Working Families Party.
"Consti" means Constitution Party.

COFOE (Coalition for Free & Open Elections) held its annual board meeting on June 16 in New York. The minutes will be posted at www.cofoe.org. In attendance were representatives of these parties: Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Reform. Also, these groups were represented: the Committee for a United Independent Party, and the Nader 2004 campaign. Observers from Unity08 and the Working Families Party attended.

Three resolutions were passed: (1) "COFOE supports the right to vote in presidential elections for all U.S. citizens registered to vote. Residency in a U.S. Territory should not deprive U.S. citizens of the right to vote for President and presidential electors." (2) "Resolved, political parties should be free to nominate any candidate for public office who meets the constitutional qualifications to hold that office." (3) "COFOE opposes public financing that establishes different standards for qualifying based on party affiliation or lack thereof."

The Board authorized $400 for printing an amicus brief in Rogers v Cortes, the Pennsylvania ballot access lawsuit now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. COFOE thanks each one of you who has contributed.

On June 25, a jury in federal court in Tallahassee ruled that the June 2005 national convention of the Reform Party was not valid. Therefore, the national chair of the Reform Party is still Rodney Martin, of Yuma, Arizona. The lawsuit existed because the national officers chosen at the 2005 meeting had sued the prior officers, alleging trademark infringement. Reform Party USA v O’Hara, 4:05cv426. In the meantime, the national officers who lost that case are still fighting the Federal Election Commission over whether the national party owes $333,000 to the FEC, from the 2000 campaign. That case is FEC v Reform Party USA, 1:04cv79, in federal court in Gainesville, Florida. The party is trying to lift the order that says it cannot spend any money on anything except paying off the debt.

The faction of the Prohibition Party that recognizes Earl Dodge as national chairman held its presidential convention in Denver on June 12. It chose Earl Dodge for president and Howard Lydick for vice-president.

The other faction of the party will hold its presidential convention in Indianapolis, September 13-14, 2007.

A state court in Pennsylvania will hold a hearing on August 22, to determine the true national party officers. The matter is in court because the national party receives a bequest every year, and the bank that handles the money needs to know whom to send the money to. The case is Residuary Trust Under Will of George Pennock, 114-1937, Delaware County, Pa., Ct. of Common Pleas, orphans court.

On July 24, Unity08 spokesperson Sam Waterston said that Unity08 now has 100,000 people signed up to vote in its on-line presidential primary. Back in May, Unity08 had 60,000. Waterston implied that Unity08 has already started petitioning for a place on the ballot in certain states.

Georgia held a special election in the 10^th U.S. House district on June 25. Anyone could get on that ballot by paying a filing fee. Party labels were permitted, but there were no party nominees; candidates merely self-identified themselves. The election was noteworthy because a Libertarian appeared on the ballot. This was the first time any party (other than the two major parties) had appeared on the ballot in Georgia (with a party label) for U.S. House, since 1942. Ten candidates ran; the Libertarian, Jim Sendelbach, received 710 votes, 1.31% of the total.

On July 8, the Mountain Party of West Virginia (the state’s only ballot-qualified party) voted to become the Green Party affiliate in West Virginia.

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