Fierce Fight Over Washington Referendum Results in Second Lawsuit

August 28th, 2009

This year, the Washington state legislature passed a bill providing for domestic partners. Opponents of the idea then collected signatures on a referendum petition to ask the voters if they wish to reject the new law.

Already, the petition drive had brought about one lawsuit, over whether the names of people who signed the petition should be made known to the public, or kept secret. Proponents of the petition filed that case, which has a hearing in federal court next week.

On August 27, another lawsuit was filed by opponents of the petition, alleging that the Secretary of State is approving signatures on the petition that should be rejected. The petition-checking process is still proceeding, and the results (to be announced next week) are expected to be very close. See this story.



Federal Legislation May Doom September Primaries

August 28th, 2009

The bill moving through Congress to fund the military has an amendment that requires states to postally mail ballots to overseas absentee voters no later than 45 days before the general election. This New York Times story says that New York state officials believe that if the bill passes, the state will be forced to move its primary (for office other than president) from September, to an earlier month. About a dozen other states also have September primaries, and what is true for New York will probably be true for them as well.

Brennan Center Press Release on Connecticut Public Funding Decision is Inaccurate

August 28th, 2009

The Brennan Center for Justice, which was once a friend of voting rights for minor party and independent voters, did most of the legal work of defending the discriminatory Connecticut public funding law in court. On August 28, the Brennan Center issued an angry press release about yesterday’s decision. It says, “This decision by a single judge completely disregards binding constitutional precedent regarding public financing programs – which have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court and other federal courts.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has only had one case involving public funding, Buckley v Valeo. The decision, released in 1976, upheld federal law that gives political parties general election funding for the presidential campaigns if that party polled at least 5% of the vote in the last presidential election. It also gives general election public funding to new parties that surpass 5%, but immediately after the election is over (so, parties that expect to poll 5% for President are usually able to borrow money on hopes of meeting the goal; John Anderson used this strategy in 1980).

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the differential in treatment by noting that the general election public funding was only upholding the status quo, because no minor party or independent presidential candidate had won the presidency since before the Civil War, and only once since the Civil War had such a candidate even placed second.

By contrast, the Connecticut law affects candidates for state office. Over 180 non-Republican, non-Democratic nominees for state office (in the 50 states) have been elected in the last 32 years. Connecticut elected an independent Governor in 1990 and an independent U.S. Senator in 2006. Green Party and Working Families Party nominees (who were not also major party nominees) have been elected recently to partisan city office in Connecticut. All of the New England states except Connecticut have minor party or independent state legislators.

The Brennan Center would apparently have people believe that Buckley v Valeo was intended to make it possible for governments to discriminate against minor party and independent candidates, even in elections in which those candidates sometimes do win. The press release also ignores the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Cook v Gralike that the Constitution forbids the government from discriminating for or against any candidates for Congress. The press release also ignores the fact that Arizona and Maine public funding programs do not discriminate, and that the bills for public funding of Congressional candidates, S752 and HR 1826, do not discriminate. Nor does the Brennan Center mention the Helsinki Accords, in which the United States pledged not to discriminate for or against any parties or candidates. If Justice William Brennan were alive today, he would be disappointed in the Brennan Center.

Connecticut Blog Attacks Public Funding Decision

August 28th, 2009

“My Left Nutmeg”, a blog for Connecticut “left” Democrats, has this lengthy criticism of yesterday’s decision in Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield. Connecticut state officials said on August 28 that they will ask the 2nd circuit to issue a stay of the ruling, while the state appeals.

Ohio 21-Year-Old Will Challenge Age Limit to Be Mayor

August 28th, 2009

Brett McClafferty, a 21-year-old who wishes to run for Mayor of Streetsboro, Ohio, says he will sue to overturn the charter provision that says Mayors must be at least 23 years old. See this story. Thanks to Carter Momberger for the link.

In Clements v Fashing, in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a 4-4-1 decision that there is no constitutional right to be a candidate. The 6th circuit had struck down other age limits on candidacy during the early 1970′s, but the current case law is against a challenge of this kind.

Pennsylvania Official on Warpath Against Petition-Checking Flaws

August 28th, 2009

Wieslaw Niemoczynski, the Monroe County (Pennsylvania) Chief Public Defender, says in this news story that he will challenge the system for checking signatures in Pennsylvania. On August 21 his own petition to be an independent candidate for Common Pleas judge had been invalidated, not because he didn’t have enough signatures of registered voters, but because of irregularities in the way addresses are recorded in the Pennsylvania SURE voter registration database.

The article quotes several Pennsylvania state legislators as saying there is nothing they can do about the problem. That is a surprising statement, since bills are pending in both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature to sharply reduce the number of signatures needed for independent candidates. The bills are bottled up in committees.

Connecticut Public Funding Law Held Unconstitutional Because it Discriminates Severely Against Minor Parties & Independent Candidates

August 27th, 2009

On August 27, U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill, a Clinton appointee, held that Connecticut’s public funding law for candidates is so discriminatory in favor of the two major parties, and against all other parties and candidates, that it is unconstitutional in its entirety. The opinion is 138 pages long. A link to the decision is found in this news story from Connecticut News Junkie. Thanks to Ken Krayeske for this news. The case is Green Party of Ct. v Garfield, 3:06cv1030. The Libertarian Party is a co-plaintiff.

Connecticut’s public funding law was passed in 2006 and used for the first time in 2008. Members of parties that polled 20% of the vote in the last election are entitled to public funding if they receive a certain number of qualifying contributions. Others must also obtain the qualifying contributions, but they need to submit a very large number of signatures, in addition.

The decision summarizes the problems with the law on page 71: “The CEP (Citizens Election Program) enhances the relative strength of major party candidates in ways that represent a severe burden on the political opportunity of minor party candidates for the following reasons: (1) it provides participating major party candidates public funding at windfall levels, well beyond what most major party candidates would typically be able to raise on their own from private fundraising sources; (2) it permits major party candidates who are as equally ‘hopeless’ as minor party candidates in many districts to become eligible for full funding without first requiring such hopeless major party candidates to make the same threshold showing of public support required of minor party candidates through the additional qualifying criteria; (3) the additional qualifying criteria for minor party candidates are nearly impossible to achieve, thus ensuring that minor party candidates will only very rarely qualify for the ‘enhancing’ benefits made available by CEP participation; and (4) in the event a minor party candidate does qualify for partial CEP funding, it handicaps that participating minor party candidate by automatically granting full funding to his or her participating major party opponent, and by prohibiting the partially-funded minor party candidate from raising private contributions, up to the full grant amount, in increments greater than $100.”

Vermont Governor Won’t Run for Re-Election; Good News for IRV Supporters

August 27th, 2009

On August 27, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, a Republican, said he won’t run for re-election in 2010. This makes it somewhat likely that a Democrat will be elected Governor next year. This is good news for supporters of Instant Runoff Voting. Vermont is the only state in which the legislature has ever passed a bill, providing that IRV should be used for state or federal elections. However, Governor Douglas vetoed it.

The news will also cheer supporters of the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential electors. Douglas vetoed that bill as well.

Houston Press Features Socialist Workers Party Mayoral Candidate

August 27th, 2009

The August 27 issue of the Houston Press has this feature story about Amanda Ulman, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Mayor in Houston’s 2009 election.

California AB 308 Put Over Until Next Year

August 27th, 2009

On August 27, the California Senate Appropriations Committee took no action on AB 308, so it becomes a “two-year” bill, and will next get action in 2010. This is the bill to help absentee overseas voters who are voting in a race that may require a second round of voting (an old-fashioned run-off). The bill would have made it possible for an overseas absentee voter to vote in both stages at the same time, using a single piece of mail. That avoids the problem that the postal mail to a foreign address might not get back and forth in the run-off quickly enough to be counted.

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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!

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  • 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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