On November 26, the 6th circuit issued an opinion in League of Women Voters v Brunner, no. 06-3335, which has excellent philosophy about the protection given to each voter by the U.S. Constitution. This specific case was filed in 2005, alleging that election administration in Ohio is so flawed, all voters are at risk of being deprived of the right to vote. Problems with inaccurate voter registration rolls, misinformation about where the voter should vote, problems with absentee voting, problems with the vote-counting equipment, all added up to a consistent pattern of failure, according to the plaintiffs. The state had moved to get the case dismissed without a trial. The U.S. District Court had said a trial is warrented. Now the 6th circuit has agreed with the U.S. District Court, and the case will proceed to trial.
The 6th circuit said, “The right to vote is a fundamental right, preservative of all rights. The right to vote includes the right to have one’s vote counted on equal terms with others…The idea that every voter is equal to every other voter in his State, when he casts his ballot in favor of one of several competing candidates, underlies many of our decisions…Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another…” These are all quotes from past U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including the December 12, 2000 opinion Bush v Gore. The 6th circuit here says that Bush v Gore can be applied generally.
This year, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Maine, and the District of Columbia, are all refusing to count valid write-in votes cast for presidential candidates who filed declarations of candidacy. Lawsuits ought to be filed against these jurisdictions. If such lawsuits are filed, decisions like this one will be helpful. Read the opinion here; it is only 14 pages long and the important parts start on page eleven.
Party primaries inherently count votes on unequal terms with others.
The removal of Ralph Nader from the Ohio ballot in 2004 resulted in greater disenfranchisement than any of the procedural issues raised in the complaint.
Yet the dupes of the LWV would be content if there was an “accurate” count of votes in a one-party system, so long as there could be expenditutes of $10s/vote.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 is still in the Constitution — regardless of being ignored by armies of lawyer MORONS.
For 39th Congress (1865-1867) fans —
Sec. 2 (for political rights – i.e. UNIVERSAL ADULT MALE U.S.A. CITIZEN RIGHT TO VOTE) was deemed much more important than Sec. 1 (for civil rights) in the TWO major speeches on the 14th Amdt in the Congress.
The 14th Amdt has been mystified and subverted by armies of lawyer MORONS since the 1870s.
Re: Demo Rep #2. You might try to enhance your vocabulary to advance your rhetorical objectives. For example, eschew the word MORONS for other synonyms in lowercase or refrain from such epithets entirely.
Re:LWV v Brunner. The act of voting is a transaction. An individual (voter) is expressing a preference for another individual (candidate) in exclusion of other persons (citizens) for the purpose of exercising the authority of a specific office. The right of the voter to make this transaction is deemed “fundamental”.
What the ballot access controversy encompasses is the “fundamental” character of the entire transaction between the voter right of exclusion from among the range of all other citizens as candidates. The power to intervene between the voter’s right to exclusion by peremptory exclusion of certain candidates is an abridgment of the voter’s right to choose who, from among all possible candidates, that voter prefers.
In short, the effect of pre-election disqualification of a class of persons which the voter has the sole right to choose from among (by write-in voting, for example) is a violation the voter’s “fundamental” right to vote.
The derivative right of a person to appear on the ballot is just as “fundamental” to the voter’s right to choose as is having the voter’s ballot counted. The denial of the candidate’s derivative right to receive votes and have them counted is an abridgment of the voter’s right to choose.
Hence, all ballot access cases are voter’s rights cases. This principle holds regardless of anyone’s prospective opinion that enough voter’s will prefer a particular candidate to secure their election to office.
The only class exclusions which may used to peremptorily foreclose the voter’s right to choose are explicitly stated in the U.S. and the various state Constitutions (citizenship, age, residence). Without Constitutional Amendment, no branch of government may disqualify candidates from the ballot and thereby abridge the right the voter to choose.
Sidebar: Who would argue that Congress could bar the possession of certain firearms because they are “unlikely” to be lethal if used, or not enough people would purchase them if such firearms were permitted to be sold?
Ballot access restrictions were not crafted by morons, nor are they sustained by morons. One cannot long evade the conclusion that the perpetuation of this violation of voter’s rights over several generations is a deliberate and collusive effort of a political class to entrench themselves. A conspiracy against the people.
Even MORONS should be able to detect that a zillion folks can NOT appear on the ballots for each office.
EQUAL nominating petitions.
Way too difficult to understand for lawyer MORONS and Supremes MORONS who have totally screwed up ballot access cases starting with Williams v. Rhodes in 1968 — a mere 40 years of scores / hundreds / thousands (??) of MORON ballot access cases in the courts.
#1: “Party primaries inherently count votes on unequal terms with others.”
This must have been a terrible country when caucuses and conventions were the order of the day for party nominations.
And you definitely wouldn’t want to live in a place like Canada, where party candidates are sometimes hand-picked by the party leaders.
#5 With a caucus or a convention you ordinarily don’t have the State going around telling candidates that if they tried to win the Zombie Party nomination and failed, that they couldn’t as a matter of law run for office.
How about this system:
(1) Early petition due end of July, with 1/50 of 1% of the vote needed. If 9 or fewer candidates qualify, all will appear on the primary election ballot.
(2) If more than 9 qualify, then there is an extended qualification period until the end of August. The top 9 petitioners qualify. In addition, any candidate who has petitions with 1/10 of 1% of the vote, including candidates who didn’t early-qualify will appear on the primary ballot.
(3) Primary at the end of September. Voters may declare a party, but are not restricted as to who they may vote for. Party officials may determine which candidates are eligible for nomination by their party members.
Top 2 qualify, plus any candidate that receives 10% of the vote, plus leading candidates that receive a cumulative 80% of the vote. In addition, the leading vote getter in any party primary in which 1% or more of all voters participate.
(3a) Any party that has 1/10 of 1% of all voters participating in their primary will retain their potential nominating status.
(4) Candidates may withdraw due to death, severe illness or disability, or conviction of a felony. Other withdrawals are permitted, but are prima facie evidence of electoral fraud, subject to a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 1/2 of the term of office.
(5) General election in early November. Majority required for election.
Party nominees will be indicated on the ballot, however, there will be no straight party device, grouping of party nominees by row, column, or ballot order. No candidate may appear on the ballot more than once, though they may have multiple nominations denoted.
(6) Runoff in early November.
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