Senator Hatch Condemns Lack of Representation for District of Columbia

June 29th, 2008

U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch has this essay in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, decrying the policy that denies District of Columbia residents any voting representation in Congress. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link. Hatch also gives the legal rationale for granting voting rights to the District without the need for a constitutional amendment.



Californian Will Attempt to be First Independent Candidate for State Senate Since 1994

June 29th, 2008

California has very difficult procedures for independent candidates to get on the ballot. No independent has qualified for any regularly-scheduled partisan office since 2000, and none has qualified for statewide office since 1992. This year, two independent candidates are making serious attempts to complete the petition to qualify as independent candidates. They are Cindy Sheehan, in the 8th U.S. House district, and Connor Vlakancic, in the 15th State Senate district (by coincidence, the California 15th State Senate district is also the subject of the preceding post). Vlakancic needs even more signatures than Cindy Sheehan, since California State Senate districts have bigger populations than U.S. House districts. Vlakancic kicked off his petition drive on June 28, and he and his team got 327 signatures on the first day. The deadline for California independent petitions in August 8. Vlakancic needs 13,533 valid signatures. The last time someone qualified as an independent for a California State Senate district was 1994, when incumbent Quentin Kopp was re-elected (Kopp was elected as an independent in 1986 and also re-elected as an independent in 1990).

Opportunity Arises for Lawsuit on California Restriction on Write-ins at Partisan Primaries

June 29th, 2008

California still hasn’t finished counting all the write-in votes from the June 3 primary. However, most counties have finished. In the 15th State Senate, there was a spirited contest for the Democratic nomination by two competing write-in candidates. A registered Democrat, Dennis Morris, has over 1,400 write-ins. This total will grow, because Santa Clara County write-ins still haven’t been tallied (the district includes part or all of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties). The incumbent Republican State Senator in the 15th district, Abel Maldonado, has over 800 write-ins, and of course his total will also grow when Santa Clara County reports its write-ins.

No one appeared on the Democratic primary ballot in that race. In virtually all other states that allow write-ins in primaries, the state would acknowledge that Dennis Morris is the Democratic nominee, and his name would be printed on the November ballot. But California requires write-in candidates at the primary to not only defeat all their opponents, but to attain a write-in total that is at least 1% of the vote for that office at the last general election. Therefore, under section 8605, Morris can’t be the nominee because his write-in total almost certainly won’t reach 3,689.

A strong case can be made that section 8605, mandating that large number of write-ins, violates the State Constitution. That is because in November 2004, the voters added Prop. 60 to the Constitution. It says that a party “shall not be denied the ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate who received, at the primary election, the highest vote among that party’s candidates.” In 2006, another frustrated write-in candidate attempted to use Prop. 60 to attack section 8605. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian denied him injunctive relief. She said she didn’t think the intent of the legislature (which wrote Prop. 60) was to help write-in candidates. But case law is strong that legislative intent is irrelevant when the language is clear and unambiguous. Attorneys for the plaintiff in 2006 didn’t expect that ruling (which was made from the bench), so they weren’t completely prepared to rebut the judge at that moment, and no additional hearing was ever held in the case. Any lawsuit that Dennis Morris may bring against section 8605 this year will be better prepared. Morris is aware of the potential for a lawsuit, and he may sue.

Kansas Reform Party Files Paperwork to List Baldwin as its Presidential Candidate

June 27th, 2008

The ballot-qualified Kansas Reform Party held its state convention back on May 31, and nominated candidates for office, including presidential electors pledged to Chuck Baldwin for president. On June 27, the party turned in the paperwork for these nominations.

The Kansas Secretary of State has hinted that he won’t allow the party to do this. He has not ruled definitively, however. Now that the party has finalized its choice, he will need to either honor the nominations, or explain precisely what provision of Kansas law purports to tell the party that it cannot nominate the presidential candidate of the Constitution Party. In 1980, the American Party of Kansas was allowed to nominate Frank Shelton for president, even though the national convention of the American Party had chosen Percy Greaves. Also, in 1968, the Conservative Party of Kansas was permitted to nominate George Wallace as its presidential candidate, even though the Conservative Party was not affiliated with George Wallace’s American (also called American Independent) Party.

Illinois IRV Bill Sent to Governor

June 27th, 2008

On June 26, the Illinois legislature sent SB 439 to the Governor. It lets municipalities use Instant-Runoff Voting for foreign absentee ballots. The Governor has two months to sign or veto it.

South Carolina Won’t Put Eugene Platt on Ballot

June 27th, 2008

South Carolina permits fusion. On June 27, the State Election Commission refused to certify Eugene Platt for the November ballot as a candidate for the State House, 115th district, even though both the Green Party, and the Working Families Party, nominated him in May at their state conventions. The problem is that Platt also ran in the June Democratic primary, and narrowly lost that primary. State law seems to say that if a candidate seeks the nomination of several parties, and fails to get all of them, then he is entirely barred from the general election ballot. Platt will probably filed a lawsuit soon.

Two Major Party Congressional Candidates in Florida Lose Ballot Access Lawsuit

June 27th, 2008

This year, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in Florida, and a Republican candidate for the same office in the same state, both failed to qualify for the September 2008 primary ballot, because of paperwork errors. Both sued. However, on June 16, a Florida state court ruled against them, and the candidates aren’t appealing.

Larry Byrnes, a Democrat in the 14th district, filed his first paperwork in July 2007. He then circulated petitions in lieu of the filing fee, and obtained enough valid signatures. But because he inadvertently signed a Declaration of Candidacy to be a write-in candidate in the general election, instead of an application to be on the primary ballot, he was disqualified.

The lawsuit turned on the definition of “furnish”. The law says the Secretary of State shall furnish the proper forms. But the judge said that since all the forms were on the Secretary of State’s webpage, that satisfied the obligation to “furnish” the forms. Byrnes v Department of State, Leon Co. Circuit Court, 2008-CA-1615. The results were almost identical in the lawsuit filed by the Republican candidate, Bob Hering, running in the 8th district.

Lawsuit Likely Over St. Paul Instant-Runoff Initiative

June 27th, 2008

Supporters of Instant-Runoff Voting submitted enough valid signatures to place an initiative on the ballot in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently. The initiative asks if the voters want to use IRV to elect city officers. But the City Council refuses to put it on the ballot, because the City Attorney says the Minnesota Constitution does not permit cities to choose IRV for their own elections. The City Attorney’s reasoning is suspect, since Minneapolis voters were permitted to vote in the same question in 2006. Minneapolis voters passed the IRV initiative, but it has not been used yet because a lawsuit was filed to try to stop it. See this article.

No one would dream of telling a state legislature, or a city council, that it could not vote on whether to pass a law or an ordinance. When state legislature and city councils pass unconstitutional legislation, the normal solution is to let the legislative body act, and then bring the lawsuit. By analogy, when the voters succeed in getting an initiative on the ballot, the voters should be allowed to vote. Only then should the issue of the measure’s constitutionality be considered.

Green Party Outpolls Labour in British House of Commons By-Election

June 27th, 2008

On June 25, Great Britain held a special election to fill a vacant seat in the House of Commons, for Henley (near Oxford). The results: Conservative John Howell 19,796; Liberal Democrat Stephen Kearney 9,680; Green Mark Stevenson 1,321; British National Party Timothy Rait 1,243; Labour Richard McKenzie 1,066. The Labour Party, of course, is the party with a majority in the House of Commons.

Britain and Canada are two-party systems, under the original meaning of the term “two-party system”. “Two-party system”, coined in 1911 to describe the British system, means a system in which two particular parties are far larger than all the others, and only two particular parties at any given time have a realistic chance of forming the government. But because Britain and Canada have non-discriminatory election laws, other parties do win seats and do exert influence. Britain and Canada have equal ballot access laws for all candidates; all candidates have an equal chance to be listed on the top off the ballot; all candidates face the same campaign finance rules. Under that environment, which existed in the United States in the 19th century as well, elections are far more fluid, as this recent British election shows. The Henley seat was vacant because its former member of Parliament, Boris Johnson, had resigned in order to take office as Mayor of London. Thanks to Eric Garris for this news.

National League of Women Voters Will Study National Popular Vote Plan

June 27th, 2008

The League of Women Voters held its national convention in Portland, Oregon, on June 13-17. On June 16, the delegates voted to study “The advisibility of using the National Popular Vote Compact among the states as a method for electing the president.” The League does not taken a position on issues, unless it has studied them first. The study is likely to take a year, but if the study finds the plan worthy of support, then the League will help lobby state legislatures to pass the Compact.

The proposal was put forward by the League of Saratoga County, New York, and passed 363-273. Thanks to Paula Lee for this news.

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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 of them. I hope you find these materials interesting and exciting; if you do, you can support the newsletter by subscribing!

Ballot Access News is edited and published by Richard Winger, the nation's leading expert on ballot access legal issues.

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  • Politics, Soviet-style by S. Philip Gordon, regarding recent ballot access issues in Georgia – the US state, not the Russian territority!

Extra Features:

Other information:

  • Here's how to subscribe to Ballot Access News!

  • Here's information on Presidential Ballot Access as well as the vote totals of recent Presidential elections.

  • Here are some other sites which may also be of interest:

    Project Vote-Smart

    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]

    The ACE Project
    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]

    "Unofficial" B.A.N. Page

    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]

    ThirdPartyNews.net

    A site that covers news about minor parties.
    [Checked:060414]

    Third Party Central

    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]

    Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

    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]

    D.C.'s Political Report

    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]

    Initiative For Texas

    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]

    Center for Voting and Democracy

    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]

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