Ohio Senate Passes Bill to Provide for Registration Into Political Parties on Voter Registration Form

On December 9, the Ohio Senate passed SB 8, the Senate’s version of the omnibus election law bill. The bill is different from HB 260, the House version of the omnibus election law bill.

The Senate bill provides that the voter registration form would ask voters if they wish to join a political party. Proposed section 3503.14 says, “The voter may identify the political party, if any, with which the voter desires to be affiliated. The space for identifying a political party shall be labeled ‘optional’ on any form the Secretary of State prescribes.”

Ohio voter registration forms in the past have never asked about party membership, and Ohio voters in the past have “joined” various political parties by the act of choosing one particular party’s primary ballot. Elections officials keep a record of which party’s primary ballot the voter chooses.

SB 8 provides that a voter who chooses a political party on a voter registration form is thereafter barred from running in any different party’s primary, far into the future. For example, if someone filled out a voter registration form on December 1,2009, saying he or she was a Republican, then that voter would be barred from running in a Democratic Party primary in 2010 or 2011, even if the voter had filled out another registration form on December 2, 2009 showing membership in the Democratic Party. Also someone who filled out a form showing party membership would be barred from running as an independent candidate for the next two years, even if the voter immediately retracted the decision to join a party.

The provision is also vague because it doesn’t say if the question on the voter registration form about political party membership would list any parties, or whether the question would require the voter to write-in the name of the party. And it doesn’t explain how to handle voters who register into parties that are not ballot-qualified.

SB 8 also moves the deadline to file as an independent presidential candidate from 75 days before the general election, to 90 days before. It also moves the deadline for candidates to file to get on a primary ballot from 75 days before the primary, to 90 days before the primary. It does not amend the unconstitutional laws that govern how new parties qualify for the ballot. It moves the deadline for filing as a declared write-in candidate from 62 days before the election to 72 days before.


Comments

Ohio Senate Passes Bill to Provide for Registration Into Political Parties on Voter Registration Form — 13 Comments

  1. This report convincingly illustrates the nature of the game of ballot/voter/candidate control.

    If voting and seeking political office are privileges’, then those in charge of granting privileges rule. That’s not government ‘of, by or for the people.’ And that brings me to the ballot access restrictions imposed on candidates not vetted by the two entrenched privilege-granting parties.

    We mere voters in Oklahoma have long battled with the legislature(s) and the Courts (right up to the Supremes) against the venality of ballot access control in this state.

    Some, and I wish them well, still contend that the D/Rs will dispense some modicum of justice (like a petition of ONLY five thousand signatures)if only we lobby the legislature persistently and more cleverly. I advocate campaigning for total abolition directly to the voters.

    I’m not sure most people would welcome total abolition of ballot access restrictions because they are oblivious to the problem as THEIR problem. I’d like to know the objections. Maybe I haven’t heard them all. If I can’t refute every one of those objections, then I would accept a restriction with a rational basis. Until I see a convincing argument for limits I will remain an opposed to any law restricting the citizen’s right to seek political office.

    Of course scaling a wall that is only five thousand bricks (signatures)high is less oppressive than scaling one that is 50 thousand bricks (signatures) high, but it’s still an illegitimate wall. Actually conducting a candidate’s campaign is a far, far better organization building exercise than the drudgery of begging for signatures on street corners – and the ballot privileged know it.

    I wish those of you who believe the fox will open the hen house for you well, but I would rather see the chickens running free. Free range chickens are healthier birds, eh? The ballot access wall is to keep the voters in the two-party pen, it is not only to keep new parties out.

    The ballot access wall makes the two self-entrenched parties the gatekeepers for candidates access to the ballot and THAT deprives new parties of credible candidates. For new citizen candidates to seek office they must submit to the party discipline of the self-entrenched status quo – no innovative mavericks are permitted within the gate. But if one independent-minded citizen does get in, that person will face severe adverse consequences in the next party primary election. Well, fine, so long as other parties are available for such candidates as a matter of right – not privilege.

    In effect, ballot access restrictions are an extension of political party bylaws applied to the voters without their consent. That is the purpose of self-entrenchment using ballot access control laws – i.e., censorship!

    A through discussion of the self-serving excuses for ballot access restrictions would strengthen any lobbying case. However, the foxes are immunized against logical argumentation by self-interested party discipline. I think the goal of abolition is better served by going behind the foxes directly to the captive voters (even Democrats and Republicans) who are far more open to rational persuasion.

    In case you missed my point, I hate all ballot access restrictions on citizens qualified to vote in any form. If you’re good to vote, you’re good to run. Let your peers decide not the self-entrenched power-mongering rent-seekers.

    Blessed are the militant, for they shall rouse the meek to inherit the Earth – if they are militant enough.

  2. The Senate hasn’t only gutted everything, they have replaced the guts with more confusion.

    Barring people from having their freedom of association is likely to be found unconstitutional. Candidates (and voters for that matter) should be able to decide what party (or no party) they want to belong to in EACH election. This bill is an attempt to keep Republicans in their party.

    On a side note, I saw a vanity plate that said “HB 260” the other day. Maybe that’s a sign?

  3. Really? 😉

    As much as I would rather have her as a senator than Lee Fisher, I don’t want her to stop being the SOS…

  4. so now the Ohio Senate (GOP) and the Ohio House (DEMS) get together in joint-session and hash it out. Let’s see how much the 1st amendment means. Why was the issue of freedom of religion and freedom of speech put in the very first amendment? And, so it goes, 200+ years later.
    Let’s see, the US courts, the D’s, the Ohio SOS, and the Ohio Governor appear to be on the side of minor party access. Who’s left to obstruct it?
    Interesting was that not ONE GOP House member protested the minor party language in HB # 260– not one protest or request for an amendment. LPO didn’t do a bad job of writing the language for minor parties on HB # 260.
    Ignoring it with SB # 8 will only work for the short term.

  5. It really doesn’t substantively change the current system where a voter who participates in one primary cycle, must sit out the next before switching parties. AB 260 does not change that either, and most likely current law will trip voters who conceivably might want to vote in the primaries of the newly “qualified” parties.

    So all it does is permit a new registrant (including someone moving into a county) to be treated as if they had voted in the previous primary. The other provisions that you cite are simply because the same form is used for change of address and name changes.

    3513.191 permits a candidate to run for a different party than the one with which he is affiliated, if he files a declaration of intent 30 days before the declaration of candidacy deadline. If a candidate does file a declaration of intent to run for the nomination of a different party, then he may not run as a candidate in the party with which he is affiliated.

    There is a special exception that permits him to circulate his own petition (ordinarily this is restricted to those who are affiliated with a party). It appears that such a party switcher would not be permitted to vote for himself in the primary.

    There is also a 10-year restriction on party switching for purposes of running in another primary (one could presumably still switch by sitting out a primary cycle).

    There does not appear to be any restriction on party-affiliated candidates running as independents (3513.257), other than the candidacy declaration is required immediately before the primary – effectively implementing a sore loser provision. The language of the last paragraph suggests that it was written in response to some legal case.

    AB 260 would also move deadlines forward (because Congress made the wrong reform with regard to overseas voters). In the case of write-in declarations it is the same 62 -> 72 days; in the case of independent candidacies it is from 75 -> 85 rather than 75 -> 90 in the Senate bill.

    So really the only substantive difference between SB 8 and AB 260 that you cited, is that SB 8 does not have a standard for qualifying parties.

  6. Courts in Ohio have not interpreted Ohio law the way comment #6 does. Several independent candidates have been barred from running because of vague associations with political parties.

    Also there is a big difference between voting in a party primary, and just signing up as a member of a party on a voter registration form. On primary day, people (especially political types who are so interested in politics they know they may run for office some day) make a very deliberate choice as to which party’s primary to vote in. But people aren’t always so careful and thoughtful at other times, and a slip filling out the registration form can ruin future plans.

  7. Separate is NOT equal — even in Ohio with the first *modern* screwed up ballot access case — Williams v. Rhodes in 1968.

    P.R. and A.V. — NO party hack primaries and conventions are needed.

    General / ONLY election — ballot access via EQUAL nominating petitions.

    Sorry – ballots have to have a limited number of candidates pending utopia – each voter votes the number of a candidate from a list having a zillion numbered candidates for each office.

  8. with the party tresholds proposed, I would imagine that there would only be 2 major parties, and maybe 3 minor parties on the ballot in Ohio. That is manageable, as proven in many, many, many other states. We will see how much longer the “beatdown” continues.

  9. #7 The Secretary of State interprets 3513.191 the same way that I do (*), and provides the form designation (1-Y) for a candidate to declare they wish to run for the nomination of a party he is not affiliated (*)

    (*) I missed the part that there is no restriction on a candidate who does not hold elective partisan office from seeking the nomination of a party he is not affiliated with.

    Of course, there may be a practical impact of a candidate having voted in another party’s primary. But that is also true in States with registration.

    I (and you) also missed Part (B) of 3513.19 that permits a voter to make a statement that they desire to affiliate with a party and support the principles of the political party whose primary ballot the person desires to vote.

    That is also the interpretation presented by the Secretary of State’s web site.

    With regard to independent candidacy, you are apparently referring to Morrison v Colley which is discussed in

    http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/elections/advisories/2007/Adv2007-05.pdf

    This advisory states that the decision overturned longtime practice in Ohio. So if there have been other decisions in this matter, they must have happened since 2006 (or perhaps the SoS is not aware of them).

    Mr. Morrison did not have a “vague association” with the Republican Party.

    He was a candidate for both his county’s central committee and that of the state central committee on the May 2006 primary ballot. He had filed with the FEC indicating an affiliation with the Republican Party, and he voted in the Republican primary (his voting could have been challenged on the basis that he had filed a declaration to run as an independent the day before).

    If a person declared an independent candidacy prior to the primary (as required in Ohio) and did not actually vote in the primary, much less run for party office and file with the FEC as a party affiliate, there is nothing to indicate that the long term practice in Ohio has been overturned.

  10. Where is the *model* election law — even with separate and unequal ballot access stuff for minor parties and independents ???

    Perhaps the folks on this list can waste their time and effort and write it for the party hacks in the State legislatures to totally ignore (or make even worse) ???

  11. Hey Demo, I have an observation. Do you have anything good to say ever?
    You seem to know so much, so what would you do bud?

  12. #12-Unfortunately my son has been this way since he was a baby. His Dad and I have tried everything we could think of, but he’s the same nasty, crying infant that he was when he was 2 months old.

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