On April 24, the Ohio Secretary of State said that it will not put the Libertarian Party on the ballot this year. In 2006 the 6th circuit had ruled that the old law, requiring a petition of 1% of the last vote cast, due an entire year before the general election, is unconstitutional. The Ohio legislature has not replaced the old, void law, with a new one.

To fill the gap in the law, last year the Ohio Secretary of State said she would accept party petitions if they were submitted in late November 2007, and if they had the signatures of one-half of 1% of the last vote cast (slightly more than 20,000 signatures). No group complied with this task. The only group that even tried to qualify as a party was the Libertarian Party, which submitted 6,500 signatures on the day before the March primary. The party believes that when a ballot access law is unconstitutional, and the legislature doesn’t pass a new requirement, then a state is obliged to put any party or any candidate on the ballot, if that party or candidate demonstrates a modicum of support.

The party rests its opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court opinion McCarthy v Briscoe. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court said that since Texas did not have any procedure for an independent presidential candidate to get on the ballot, Texas must put McCarthy on the ballot even though he hadn’t submitted any petition at all. The Court noted public opinion polls, and ballot status for McCarthy in other states, to justify putting McCarthy on the ballot.

Ohio is in the 6th circuit. The 6th circuit issued a similar opinion in 1984 called Goldman-Frankie v Austin. It said the lower court had been correct to order the Michigan Secretary of State to put Peggy Goldman-Frankie on the ballot as an independent candidate for State Board of Education, since Michigan did not have a valid law in place.

The Ohio Secretary of State did not say why she is not influenced by McCarthy v Briscoe or Goldman-Frankie v Austin. It is likely that the party will bring a lawsuit. It nominated by convention earlier this year and has certified the names of its candidates for U.S. House and state legislature.

Two hours after Chuck Baldwin defeated Alan Keyes for the Constitution Party nomination, no mainstream media has yet posted this news to a web page, not even the Kansas City press (the convention is in Kansas City). The only media that has reported it so far is Lew Rockwell.com, ThirdPartyWatch and this site. UPDATE: The Kansas City Star has now publicized the outcome; see this.

The Voice of America has this story about the race for the Libertarian presidential nomination. Thanks to the Wayne Root campaign for the link.

The rollcall is finished at the Constitution Party national convention, and the results are a first ballot victory for Chuck Baldwin of Florida, for president. Baldwin was the party’s vice-presidential candidate in 2004. Thanks to the Alan Keyes web site www.alankeyes.com for broadcasting a live showing of the rollcall, and also thanks to ThirdPartyWatch. The final vote was: Baldwin 383.8; Keyes 125.7; Max Riekse 4.5; Daniel Imperato 1; Susan Duzey 1. The Keyes total was buoyed by strong support from California, and Keyes also won the most votes from Alaska, Maryland, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

Before the vote was taken, a procedural vote settled that Ron Paul, who had not sought the party’s nomination, was not a valid choice at the convention roll-call.

See www.thirdpartywatch.com for a report by Mike Ferguson on the Constitution Party’s national convention in Kansas City.

The New Mexico Secretary of State’s office has finished checking the petition of Ralph Nader’s Independent Party. The petition has enough valid signatures. The Secretary of State is still working on verifying the Constitution Party petition.

Nader chose to qualify a new party in New Mexico, rather than qualifying as an independent presidential candidate, because the number of signatures for a new party is only one-sixth as many signatures. By contrast, in 2004, he did the independent presidential petition.

On April 23, a Florida State Court of Appeals struck down a law passed in 2007 that lets voters who had signed an initiative revoke their signatures. The 2007 law also said that revocation forms shall be furnished to voters at each county elections office, and that someone who revoked his or her signature could not thereafter sign that same initiative again.

The case is Florida Hometown Democracy v Browning, 1D07-6024. The plaintiff is struggling to qualify its statewide initiative, and is fighting other legal battles over the sufficiency of its petition. One can imagine the frustration that any petitioning group feels, as it tries to complete a petition, knowing that its opponents are carrying on a public relations campaign to persuade people who have already signed, to revoke their signatures. The proponents can never know for sure how many of their signatures have been revoked, and thus can never know whether they have enough valid signatures.

Signature revocation has also been used against minor party petitions, notably in New York and other states in 1940 against various state Communist Party petitions.

The Florida court said that the Florida Constitution protects the initiative process, and makes no provision for revocation of signatures. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

On April 24, the New York State Court of Appeals (the highest state court in that state) heard one case involving an intra-party dispute in the Independence Party, and another one involving such a dispute in the Working Families Party.

The Independence Party case is called Conroy v State Committee of Independence Party. It concerns a state party rule that deprives New York City branches of the party the ability to decide whether to let candidates who are members of other parties enter the Independence Party primary. The motivation for the rule was that Lenora Fulani supporters control the New York City branches of the party, and the state officers are opposed to her and desire to limit her power in the party.

The Court of Appeals judges seemed intent on deciding the issue by figuring out what the New York state election law says about the issue, even though that is very difficult, since the law is not only unclear, but virtually contradictory. The mid-level court had split the difference, ruling that the local New York city party officials could enjoy authority over the 3 citywide offices, but not the district offices within the city.

The other case is called Master v Pohanka. The Working Families Party has a rule that the state officers of the party have jurisdiction over whether members of other parties may enter the Working Families Party primary. Some county officials of the party claim that the state party rule violates the election code, and desire more local control.

The organization that is sponsoring the National Popular Vote bills has released the results of a poll on whether voters would prefer to keep the electoral college as it is, or switch to a direct popular election. The poll was conducted April 19-20, and includes 797 Connecticut voters. By a 73%-27% margin, voters say they prefer a direct election. A majority of all ethnic groups, both sexes, and all age groups, support direct election. Men prefer a direct election by 64%-36%, whereas women prefer a direct election 81%-19%. By party, Democrats favor a direct election 80%-20%, independents do so 76%-24%, and Republicans also favor a direct election by 59%-41%.

The April 23 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle has a story about confusion between the American Independent Party, and independent voters. The American Independent Party has been ballot-qualified since 1968, yet some Californians still think that if they wish to register as an Independent voter, they should choose the box for “American Independent Party.” The correct way for a California voter to register as an independent is to check the box labeled “Declines to State a Party.”

The publicity was engendered when Mayor Gavin Newsom’s fiancee registered into the American Independent Party. When this was noticed, the Mayor said his fiancee had intended to register as an independent. The American Independent Party is the California affiliate of the Constitution Party. The California Secretary of State says she will redesign the voter registration form to make it more obvious that the American Independent choice is a party. However, the logical solution, to change the designation for actual independents from “Declines to State a Party” to “Independent” cannot be implemented without a change in the election code. The legislature in the past has voted down bills to make this change. Apparently legislators don’t want the choice of “independent” to be listed on the voter registration form, because they believe it is too attractive.