On March 27, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the petition-checking procedures used in 2004 for independent presidential petitions are legal. Peroutka v Cronin, no. 27233. Here is the decision.

The decision is somewhat maddening. Plaintiffs (Michael Peroutka, Constitution Party presidential candidate, and Ralph Nader, independent presidential candidate) had complained that even though the petition requires signers to list their birthdates, the state won’t use the birthdate information to help them find a voter on the rolls. The Court simply said that Hawaii regulations do not require elections officials to use the birthdate.

Plaintiffs had complained that when a signer has bad handwriting, the state simply refused to try to decipher that handwriting. The Court merely quoted the regulations, which say that elections officials “may” disregard signatures with bad handwriting.

Plaintiffs had argued that the same person who is in charge of checking signatures, is also the person who is in charge of hearing an appeal of his own work. The Court merely said there is nothing illegal about that.

The decision is devoid of any discussion of voting rights, or constitutionality. The parallel federal court case over these same issues is still alive, and the federal court is free to issue its own ruling and to disagree with the State Supreme Court. In a parallel situation, the Michigan Supreme Court had ruled on November 21, 2007, that a Michigan state law giving the list of presidential primary voters only to the two major parties is constitutional. That did not stop a U.S. District Court from coming to the opposite conclusion on March 26, 2008.

On March 31, Hawaii Elections officials ruled that the Constitution Party petition for party status has enough valid signatures, so the party is on the ballot. The party is now on for president in 18 states. The Constitution Party had failed to get on the Hawaii ballot in 2004, although it was on in 1996 and 2000.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a full opinion on March 31, but it did not issue the Indiana photo ID case for voters at the polls. There will be no more U.S. Supreme Court decisions until April 14 at the earliest.

Kansas is one of the states that didn’t hold a presidential primary this year, and used caucuses instead. On March 28, the Kansas House passed HB 2683, which sets up a presidential primary starting in 2012. It would be the first Saturday in February.

It is possible to predict that 2008 will be another presidential election in which only six general election presidential candidates will theoretically be able to be elected.

It is quite likely that the presidential nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties, as well as independent candidate Ralph Nader, will be the only presidential candidates on the ballot in states containing a majority of the electoral vote. This will be a repeat of the situation in 2004.

The July 1, 2007 Ballot Access News paper issue listed such presidential candidates from all presidential elections 1856 through 2004. The number of electable presidential candidates has varied between two and seven, in all those elections.

RocktheDebates was founded to work for at least one general election presidential debate in which all the candidates who could potentially be elected, are invited. The fact that there almost surely will be six such candidates in 2008 should give renewed strength for the RocktheDebates goal. This year, if the Commission on Presidential Debates again claims that the 15% poll rule must be enforced or there would be “hundreds” of candidates on the stage, let that claim be countered with the facts. Also remember the large number of Democratic and Republican presidential debates held this season which were quite successful, even though there were often 6, 7, 8 or 9 candidates in those debates.

On March 28, the Washington Republican Party asked the U.S. District Court that first heard the case against the “top-two” system, to let the party file an amended complaint in that same case.

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 had ruled that the “top-two” system does not violate the associational rights of political parties on its face, but had left the door open to new lawsuits against the system on other grounds, and also left the door open to a renewal of the associational argument “as applied.”

The Republican Party seeks to revise its original complaint, to make two new points: (1) the advertising in favor of the “Top-Two” initiative was false; (2) that in practice, the system will confuse voters into thinking that candidates listed on the ballot as preferring the Republican Party are actually representing the Republican Party.

The first point depends on the fact that the Washington Supreme Court recently invalidated another initiative that had passed, on the grounds that the advertising for it was false and misleading.

The amended Republican Party complaint about false advertising for the initiative specifically targets the pro-”top-two” advertising that claimed that the initiative would not affect the ability of minor parties to place nominees on the November ballot. There was a great deal of confusion about this during the campaign for “top-two” in 2004. In fact, even the text of the initiative itself contradicted itself on this point. Thanks to Richard Shepard for this news.

This year, 30 states have held presidential primaries (counting D.C. as a state). As noted in an earlier post, the cumulative vote totals for the leading major party presidential candidates are: Hillary Clinton 13,920,268; Barack Obama 13,855,412; John McCain 7,613,865.

Although 12 more presidential primaries are yet to occur, one can imagine that McCain’s vote total will never catch up to the vote totals for the two leading Democrats. If the U.S. used the “top-two” system that Washington state will be using this year, the general election would be between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; no one else would be allowed on the November ballot.

The 12 presential primaries that lie in the future are: Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Not all of those primaries will choose delegates.

Nebraska and Maine are somewhat well-known for being the only two states that elect one presidential elector from each U.S. House district. The other 48 states elect presidential electors at-large. In theory, Nebraska and Maine could send elect some Democratic electors and some Republican electors, although it just happens that ever since those two states have used the district system, each district in that state has always agreed with all the other districts (Nebraska has 3 districts; Maine has 2).

Nebraska Senator Mike Friend introduced HB 433 last year, to end the system of electing one elector from each district. Although it has not advanced, it has not been defeated either. Nebraska has two-year legislative sessions. This year’s session will end on April 17.

Senator Friend also introduced a state constitutional amendment last year to give Nebraska a bicameral legislature. That proposal was LR3CA, but that was defeated, on March 8, 2007. Nebraska is the only state with a one-House legislature, but Senator Friend would have proposed a Senate of 31 members and a House of 62 members. Many Nebraska State Senators are serving their last terms this year, due to term limits finally taking effect. The Friend proposal would have provided an escape route for such Senators, if it had been enacted, since they could have run for the new House of Representatives.

OpEd News ran this story on March 22 about the Green presidential nomination. It features Kent Mesplay, who says he is serious about defeating Cynthia McKinney for the nomination.

Missouri has 9 U.S. House districts. Filing closed recently for Missouri primaries. The state has 3 ballot-qualified parties, each of which nominates by primary. This year Democrats will have a nominee in all 9 districts, Republicans will have a nominee in 8 districts, and Libertarians will have a nominee in 7 districts.

In 2006, all three of those parties had nominees in all districts.

New parties in Missouri still have plenty of time to petition their way onto the ballot. The Constitution Party has already finished its petition, but hasn’t handed it in yet, until it finishes recruiting candidates. Independents are also free to file in late July.