Socialist Labor Party Closes Office

December 31st, 2008

The Socialist Labor Party, the original party of socialism in the United States, stopped running candidates for partisan public office after 1981, but has continued to publish its newspaper, The People, on a bimonthly schedule. However, due to a shortage of funds, the paper hasn’t been published since the March-April 2008 issue.

The SLP closed its national office, which had been in San Jose, California, on September 1, and shipped a great deal of archival material to Duke University and also to the Wisconsin State Historical Society. Both institutions have good collections relating to the history of many minor parties.

The SLP hopes to resume publication of The People in 2009.



Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Again Denies Relief to Nader on 2004 Costs

December 31st, 2008

On December 31, 2008, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court again refused to reconsider the matter of costs that Ralph Nader was ordered to pay to the people who challenged his petition in 2004. The original request for reconsideration had been based on new revelations that the challengers had been indicted for using state resources. The new request had rebutted the Commonwealth Court’s response. That Commonwealth Court’s response had been that the money is owed to different entities than the entities that were indicted. The new request for reconsideration had proved that assertion to be mistaken. But, the Commonwealth Court on December 31 simply denied the request without explanation. This will now be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

D.C. Republican Party Loses Lawsuit over Winner of City Council Election

December 31st, 2008

On December 31, the D.C. Court of Appeals (which is not the same as the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C.) ruled that Michael A. Brown, not Patrick Mara, is the winner of the District’s “at-large” seat that is always reserved for someone other than a Democrat. UPDATE: here is the 5-page decision.

D.C. provides that voters may vote for two candidates for City Council-at-Large, and each party may only run a single nominee. This was meant to keep the Democrats from winning all seats.

Michael A. Brown had been a prominent Democratic Party activist and had voted in this year’s Democratic presidential primary. But he had changed his registration to “independent” in May 2008, and he filed petitions to be on the November ballot as an independent. He got the most votes of all non-Democrats. Republicans had sued, claiming that Republican nominee Patrick Mara should be declared the winner since Brown was not a bona fide independent. But the Court ruled that such “real world” political associations are irrelevant.

Bill Redpath Newspaper Interview

December 30th, 2008

Libertarian Party national chair Bill Redpath is interviewed here. The newspaper that carried this interview is the Loudoun section of the Washington Post.

Illinois Senate Vacancy News

December 30th, 2008

This British blog (Michael Tomasky’s, from The Guardian) gives an interesting account of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s press conference of December 30, in which the Governor appointed Roland Burris to the vacant U.S. Senate seat. Thanks to Daily Kos for the link.

Baldwin Set Presidential Percentage Records for Constitution Party in 27 States

December 30th, 2008

The Constitution Party has run a presidential candidate in each of the last five presidential elections. In 2008, its presidential nominee, Chuck Baldwin, polled a higher percentage of the vote than any previous Constitution Party presidential candidate had ever polled in 27 states.

Those 27 states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Ironically, however, 2008 wasn’t the Constitution Party’s best presidential showing. Baldwin in 2008 polled .15% of the total vote, whereas in 1996 Howard Phillips had polled .19%. Phillips was on the ballot in 1996 in four populous states in which Baldwin wasn’t on (California, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania).

The Libertarian Party also hit new presidential percentage records in 2008, in two states, Indiana and North Carolina.

The only other minor parties that had a presidential candidate in 2008 as well as in previous years which hit new percentage records are the Working Families Party in New York, the Peace & Freedom Party of California, and the Natural Law Party of Michigan. The latter two parties nominated Ralph Nader in 2008.

Congressional Pay Goes Up Again

December 29th, 2008

During 2008, salary for members of Congress has been $169,300. On January 1, 2009, it rises to $174,000. Every time the salary goes up, filing fees also go up, in the states in which the filing fee is a percentage of the salary.

Alabama Ballot Access Case Transferred from Birmingham to Montgomery

December 29th, 2008

On December 23, the Alabama ballot access case called Shugart v Chapman was removed from the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, to the U.S. District Court in Montgomery, at the state’s request. The suit challenges the number of signatures needed for an independent candidate for U.S. House. The lawsuit points out that in the district at issue, the law requires over 6,100 valid signatures, whereas the state only requires 5,000 signatures for an independent presidential candidate. The case is now assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Wallace Capel.

In 1979 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot require more signatures for an office in just part of the state, than for a statewide office. The Alabama case had been filed in Birmingham because the district is near Birmingham, but the state argued that the case should have been filed in Montgomery because the Secretary of State’s office is there.

Comparison of Security: Slot Machines v Electronic Voting Machines

December 28th, 2008

The markcrispinmiller.com blog has this interesting comparison of Nevada state security rules for gambling machines, versus the normal state oversight for electronic vote-counting machines. Most significant is that Nevada requires the users of gambling equipment to reveal the software to the government office that regulates gambling. Manufacturers of electronic vote-counting machines have always fiercely resisted sharing their software with state elections officials. Thanks to Ed Still’s VoteLaw blog for the link.

Well-Known Economics Professor Publishes Book Blasting Restrictive Ballot Access Laws

December 28th, 2008

Professor James T. Bennett has just published “Stifling Political Competition: How Government Has Rigged the System to Benefit Demopublicans and Exclude Third Parties.” The publisher is the prestigious Springer Company, which is the world’s largest publisher of books on science, technology and medicine. Springer has published over 150 Nobel prize-winners. Professor Bennett is an Eminent Scholar at George Mason University and holds the William P. Snavely Chair of Political Economy and Public Policy in the Economics Department. He is the founder and director of the Journal of Labor Research.

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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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Essays by Richard Winger:

Additional articles/essays:

  • 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]

The newsletter is published by and copyright by Richard Winger.