Comments on: Fifth Circuit Says that Mississippi “10 Minutes Too Late” Case is Not Moot; Tells Lower Court to Settle the Issue

By: Jim Riley

Jim Riley — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:06:33 +0000

Doesn’t the 5th circuit’s decision mean that they didn’t like the federal court interpreting Mississippi law? Did Moore seek a remedy in the Mississippi courts? Couldn’t he have sought Congress not to count Mississippi’s electoral votes as being irregular?

By “minimum” don’t you mean “sufficient”?

All the specific deadline times in the election code that were cited apply to a number of different agents throughout the state, where it would be necessary to impose consistency. The one exception that applies solely to the SOS is for receipt of primary filings. But in that case it is set in conjunction with a deadline imposed on the political parties.

By: Mark Brown

Mark Brown — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:13:39 +0000

Obviously, regulating presidential elections under Article II is not simply a state matter. There are several Supreme Court cases that discuss the problem; if the Fifth Circuit had not wanted the federal court “meddling” it would have affirmed the District Court and dismissed. That it ordered Pullman abstention means that it wants the federal court to remain involved. Coming from the Fifth Circuit–one of the most states’ rights courts in the country–this is a profound victory.

Of course there are lots of irrelevant technical distinctions between Mississippi’s many election laws. The only relevant point is temporal. Moore’s perusal of state law proves that 5:00 PM is not an absolute. It is a minimum–which is expressly recognized by the Mississippi legislature in the labor law that establishes these minimum office hours.

By: Darcy G Richardson

Darcy G Richardson — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:32:30 +0000

Steve Rankin was a great help in tracking down the NLP chairperson in Mississippi. It took some effort to convince the party to nominate Brian, but we wouldn’t have been able to obtain the NLP’s nomination without Steve’s timely assistance in the first place.

By: Steve Rankin

Steve Rankin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:44:03 +0000

#24: I sent the name and address of the Mississippi NLP chairman to Darcy Richardson at Darcy’s request.

I read a post here at BAN that the NLP nominated you by conference call.

I did not mean to minimize the efforts of your campaign.

By: Brian P. Moore

Brian P. Moore — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:47:59 +0000

In response to Demo Rep’s Mom comments on our being late: We had contracted with professional petitioners in Louisiana earlier in the week to collect pre-arranged elector forms in the state of Mississippi; but, the professionals called around noon of the day of the 5 PM deadline indicating they were not going to be able to make it to the state of Mississippi to collect the petitions from our targeted MS volunteer electors. Subsequently, our campaign spent the entire afternoon contacting and contracting taxi services to travel to the disparate suburban and citywide locations to pick up and return the signed elector documents to the state elections office by 5 PM of the same day. The campaign’s ten-minute “tardiness” arrival of its elector petitions, by several taxi’s, was a commendable effort and achievement under such trying and costly conditions.

In response to Steve Rankin: Our campaign worked the phones, e-mails and surface mail for over a month in order to eventually gain the nomination of the NLP.

By: Steve Rankin

Steve Rankin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:48:59 +0000

#22: “Does the NLP even have any furniture to take care of?”

The Natural Law Party nominated Brian Moore for president by conference call.

By: Jim Riley

Jim Riley — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:42:04 +0000

#21 Alternatively, the Court of Appeals simply didn’t like the federal courts meddling in a matter that is strictly a State matter under Article II.

Incidentally, all instances of a 5 pm deadline that are cited in footnote 4 apply to multiple agents, where the State would want a consistent time applied statewide, or where different agents may have different regular operating hours. There is no need in the case of presidential filings where there is only a single recipient, and the State has already provided for regular hours for the Secretary of State elsewhere.

Â§ 23-15-299(3) applies to the political parties. It would not be expected for the legislature to set operating hours for political parties. Does the NLP even have any furniture to take care of?

Â§ 23-15-359(3) shouldn’t be isolated from Â§ 23-15-359(4) given that one applies to multi-county districts and the other to single-county districts.

Â§ 23-15-807(e) refers to the Secretary of State in the role of setting FAX standards. The recipients of the actual campaign finance (by 5 pm) are given elsewhere.

Â§ 23-15-309(1) and Â§ 23-15-361(1) are for municipal elections, where filings are with municipal clerks.

Â§ 23-15-637 and Â§ 23-15-721(3) are for receipt of absentee ballots at multiple registrar offices.

By: Mark Brown

Mark Brown — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:11:42 +0000

If Mississippi law were so clear–that is, the deadline was clearly 5:00 p.m.–one suspects that the Fifth Circuit would have affirmed the District Court on that point. The District Court, after all, found that Mississippi law provided for a 5:00 p.m. deadline. Because the Fifth Circuit reversed on this point, and urged the District Court to seek advice from the state courts, it is safe to say that the Fifth Circuit agreed with Moore that Mississippi’s deadline is ambiguous. If the Mississippi Legislature changes the deadline to clearly state 5:00 p.m., then Moore will have achieved at least one objective–forcing Mississippi to clearly state its deadline. Even then, Moore can still win a more important point in federal court; that is, state agents do not have the constitutional authority to establish deadlines for presidential elections under Article II.

By: Demo Rep's Mom

Demo Rep's Mom — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:07:44 +0000

#19 A moron, son? No, perhaps they have a job (boy I wish I could say that about you). I would be happy to hold an election over a week if people want, to have early voting or mail voting or E-voting. But whatever you do, at SOME point the process has to end and the winner has to be seated, so you have to have deadlines. If you do, they have to be respected by voters and by candidates.

By: Demo Rep

Demo Rep — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:26:22 +0000

#18 Is a voter who shows up at such 8:10 PM a MORON ???

Oregon survives with ALL mail ballots — with hopefully not ANY moron postal snails holding back the ballots.

How many MORON voters in Oregon fail to mail their ballots by the snail mail deadline ???