On January 26, 2008, former President Bill Clinton said, “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988.” Here is a video of him saying that:
Clinton’s statement has caused most people to believe that Jesse Jackson won presidential primaries in South Carolina in those years. Actually there were no Democratic presidential primaries in South Carolina in either of those years. Jackson’s success in that state was in caucuses (Jackson was born in South Carolina).
At 8:45 pm eastern time, with 73% counted, the results are: Obama 201,171; Clinton 99,824; Edwards 68,422; Kucinich 405. For CNN’s election returns page, which is being continuously updated, see here.
As courts continue to support the idea that political parties may run their nominations process as they see fit (even when that conflicts with state law), more observers are starting to question why taxpayers pay for party primaries, especially presidential primaries. Here is another such commentary from Laurence Reisman. He writes for a series of newspapers in Florida’s Treasure Coast (the area north of Palm Beach).
Nevada State Senator Dina Titus, leader of her party in the State Senate, says she will soon introduce a bill to give Nevada presidential primaries. She and some other Nevada observers feel the caucus method is not a good idea. See this article.
On January 22, a committee to recall one particular Michigan state legislator filed a lawsuit to strike down a law that says only district residents may circulate that type of petition. The case is in Kent County Circuit Court. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
The number of signatures for statewide minor party and independent candidates in Pennsylvania this year is 24,666. The exact number could not be known until the Pennsylvania November 2007 election returns had been completely tallied.
The 24,666 is somewhat better than the 2004 requirement, which was 25,697. However, the 2000 requirement had been even lower, 21,739.
On January 25, Hillary Clinton said she will work to seat Michigan and Florida delegates to the Democratic National Convention, but shortly afterwards, Barack Obama’s campaign criticized her for that stand. John Edwards’ campaign has not yet commented on the issue.
Florida has 210 delegates, and Michigan has 156 delegates, out of the total of 4,048 delegates. The Democratic National Committee had said those two states may not have any delegates, because they broke national party rules on the timing of their presidential primaries. Clinton said, “I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so.”
Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe responded by saying, “It seems like Hillary Clinton will do or say anything to win an election.” See this story about the Obama campaign’s response. Thanks to Tony Roza for this news.
On January 24, 2008, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth re-did its January 24, 2007 order, in the matter of how much money Carl Romanelli is supposed to pay to the people who challenged his 2006 Green Party petition. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on November 20, 2007, had told the Commonwealth Court Judge to amend his order. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court wanted “an assessment of costs referenced by category and amount assessed as well as a statement of rationale behind the imposition of these costs.”
The amended Commonwealth Court order merely reiterates everything that was in the original order. Now it will go back to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to see if the amended order is good enough for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
One of the ironies in this case is that the Commonwealth Court Judge, James R. Kelley, is being represented in an entirely different matter by the same attorney who is representing Carl Romanelli. In other words, the attorney for the judge is also the attorney for someone who has a case before that judge! It had been thought that Judge Kelley would recuse himself from this latest action, but he did not.
The National Association of Secretaries of State has long had a useful chart on its webpage, giving the dates of presidential primaries. The NASS page is even better and has added a chart on the rules by which each major party chooses delegates. See both charts here.
In 2002, a U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania ruled that state law, telling circulators for district office that they cannot work outside of the district they live in, is unconstitutional. The case was Morrill v Weaver, 224 F Supp 2d 882. The state did not appeal.
Notwithstanding that, the state still is not permitting circulators to work outside their home U.S. House district, if those circulators are circulating a presidential primary delegate petition. The state is using the technicality that the 2002 court victory related to the Green Party’s petition to get various candidates on the November ballot. Of course, the decision was based on the First Amendment right of individuals to petition their government and to engage in political speech. In this context, there is no meaningful distinction between district petitions for minor party ballot access to the November election, and district petitions to the primary ballot.
Jonathan Marks, Chief of the Pennsylvania Elections Division, denied the request to let presidential primary delegate petitions be circulated outside the circulator’s home district on January 25. It is not known if any presidential candidate will sue to overturn the ruling. Pennsylvania requires presidential primary candidates to submit a statewide petition of 2,000 names, and then separate petitions of 200 signatures for delegates in each US House district.
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
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Ballot
Access News is edited and published by Richard Winger,
the nation's leading expert on ballot access legal issues.
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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.
