The New York State Court of Appeals, the highest state court in that state, ruled at 6 pm on February 25 that the Independence Party should be restored to the ballot, for the special election being held in the 48th State Senate. The election is February 26.

Such last-minute changes to the ballot are only possible because New York state uses mechanical voting machines. The Court ruled that the valid Independence Party nominee is Will Barclay, who is also the Republican Party nominee and Conservative Party nominee.

The 48th State Senate district has two counties and part of a third. One county Independence Party organization had chosen Will Barclay, but the other county party organization had chosen the Democratic nominee, Darrel Aubertine. State party rules said that the county that chose Barclay should have the upper hand, since it cast more votes in November 2006 for the party’s gubernatorial vote. But the lower state courts had said that the party rule is only applicable if the two counties had identical rules for making nominations in special elections. Therefore, the lower courts had said, only the State Committee of the party had the power to make the nomination, and since it hadn’t done so by the deadline, the party could have no nominee.

The State Court of Appeals decision is unanimous. It depends on a technicality. The State Board of Elections had put Barclay on the ballot as the Independence Party nominee, and the State Court of Appeals said that his opponent had no standing to challenge that decision. The case is Fehrman v N.Y. State Bd. of Elections, no. 106.

This Texas story says that an IVR poll has found that 17% of the voters who say they plan to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary on March 4, also say they expect to vote for the Republican presidential nominee in November. The same poll finds 22% of the voters who say they will vote for Barack Obama on March 4 expect to vote for the Republican nominee in November.

This is evidence that “raiding” does occur. “Raiding” is the intrusion of voters into party primaries who are not, in their hearts, loyal to the party holding that primary. For years, political scientists have fought over whether “raiding” really occurs in open primaries.

The February 25 New York Times has this op-ed by Geraldine Ferraro, supporting the idea that superdelegates ought to settle the identity of the Democratic presidential nominee. Ferraro’s justification is that Democratic presidential primaries get raided anyway, and therefore the presidential primaries should not be the determining factor in whom the party nominates.

The 9th circuit will hear Nader v Brewer on April 15. This is an Arizona ballot access case. The issues are whether states may ban out-of-state residents from collecting signatures for an independent candidate, and whether states can set the independent presidential petition deadline in early June.

Arizona has the state’s 2nd earliest independent presidential petition deadline. Only the Texas deadline is earlier. The Arizona deadline is so early, it is three months before the state’s primary, and also three months before the date of the Republican National Convention this year.

The Missouri Senate Financial, Government Operations & Elections Committee will hold a hearing February 25 (Monday) at 2 pm, on SB 797. This is the bill that fixes the technical glitch in the state’s petition for new parties. The existing law was written in 1993. It said that a party could circulate a petition to qualify itself, before it has chosen its nominees. Unfortunately, due to a typographical error, the 1993 bill contradicted its own purpose by also saying that the petition must list the party’s presidential candidate and presidential elector candidates. SB 797 fixes that typo.

No one apparently knows the results of the Massachusetts Green Party presidential primary held on February 5. The Secretary of State’s office won’t release unofficial results. It hopes to have the official results by March 3 if everything goes well. The Massachusetts primary results will be interesting, since Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney were both on the ballot.

The only other Green presidential primary in which both candidates were on the ballot was California, where the latest figures (still not official) are Nader 19,771; McKinney 8,692.

Anyone in Massachusetts is free to contact each town and gather the results now, and perhaps someone has done that.

Sally Soriano, Ralph Nader’s 2008 Campaign Manager, has posted this statement on www.votenader.org: “Ralph told the media today after ‘Meet the Press’ that he will decide within the coming days how he is going to run for President in terms of ballot access. On ‘Meet the Press’ he mentioned the Green Party positively multiple times thus helping put the Green Party out to “Meet the Press’s” five million plus viewers. Ralph also said that he will announce his Vice-Presidential selection sometime in the next week. If people with the Green philosophy want him to seek their nomination, they could show their support by going to and by donating and signing up on the email list. No matter what he decides he will be communicating the Green Party agenda over the coming months.” Thanks to Dean Myerson for this news. The Nader campaign webpage is here.

On February 23, the Ohio Libertarian Party held a statewide nominating convention. The party nominated candidates for presidential elector, four candidates for U.S. House, three for State House, and one for State Senate.

The party will submit a petition to the Secretary of State in the next week, in advance of the Ohio primary set for March 4, and ask to be recognized as a qualified party. The old Ohio petition procedure was declared unconstitutional by the 6th Circuit in September 2006, and the legislature has not passed a new law to replace it. Under a 6th circuit precedent from 1984, called Goldman-Frankie v Austin (a Michigan case), when a state’s ballot access has been declared unconstitutional and the legislature has not passed a new law, state officials must place any party or any candidate on the November ballot if that party or that candidate can show a modicum of support.

The Ohio Secretary of State in 2007 had responded to the gap in the Ohio law by saying she would place any group on the ballot as a party if it submitted 20,114 valid signatures by late November 2007. The Ohio Libertarian Party will try to persuade the Secretary of State to recognize it, even though it did not meet her conditions. If that does not succeed, the party will probably file a new lawsuit, arguing that it has shown a modicum of support and that under the Goldman-Frankie precedent, that is sufficient.

Last year, the Vermont House passed SB 108, which would provide that Instant-Runoff Voting should be used in U.S. Senate and U.S. House elections. The Senate is expected to take up the bill in early March, and it will probably pass. If it is signed into law, it will take effect this year. However, it happens that Vermont doesn’t have a U.S. Senate this election, so IRV use in 2008 would only be for the U.S. House election.

Ralph Nader’s February 24 announcement that he will run for president as an independent in 2008 has received extensive coverage, but that coverage is of poor quality. See this article as an example. To see the appearance itself, see here. To read the transcript, see here.

The real news is that Nader is not seeking the Green Party nomination. That decision will delay his ability to qualify for primary season matching funds. One cannot apply for primary season matching funds unless one says he or she is seeking the nomination of some party that is on the ballot in at least two states. In 2004, Nader said he was seeking the nomination of the Reform Party, and on that basis did receive matching funds. This year, at this point, Nader cannot say he is seeking the nomination of any political party (unless he again says he is seeking the Reform Party nomination, which is most unlikely, given its disarray).

The other problem with media coverage of Nader’s announcement, is that none of it mentions the evidence that his 2004 run did not injure John Kerry. See this. For a more detailed analysis, see here. Yet we have the same old assumptions that Nader will injure the Democrats in 2008, with no look at what actually happened in 2004.

On February 22, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court agreed with the lower court, and kept the Independence Party from nominating a candidate for State Senate, 48th district. The special election is Tuesday, February 26. The faction of the party that supports Will Barclay has appealed to the highest state court. That court will hear the case on Monday, the day before the election. The faction of the Independence Party that supports Barclay also filed a federal lawsuit, which also has a hearing on Monday. The state party officers support the Barclay faction; here is a statement from the party’s vice-chair.