The Alabama Democratic Party’s certification of its two primary candidates for the upcoming special election, U.S. House, First District, was an hour past the deadline. However, the Secretary of State accepted the filing anyway. See this story.
The Michigan Secretary of State refused to accept Gary Johnson’s 2011 withdrawal from the Republican presidential primary, even though Johnson was only three minutes late. That sad result harmed all the voters who wished to vote for Johnson in November, because he was kept off the November ballot and thus voters who wanted to vote for him had to cast a write-in vote. Thanks to David Schoen for the link. UPDATE: here is a newspaper story.
Just in the past weeks, this same Alabama Secretary of State’s office responded to an inquiry as to whether it would be willing to reduce signature requirements or extend deadlines for signature petitions for minor party candidates for an upcoming Special Election to the U.S. House since the time frame will be reduced from 2 years to less than 2 months, with a categorical refusal, purportedly because it has no authority to deviate from statutorily imposed time and signature requirements. I guess that categorical refusal has its exceptions.
Hmmm. EQUAL protection of the LAWS only for certain robot party hacks ???
Mississippi’s Secretary of State refused Brian Moore’s petition to run for President in 2008 because it was two minutes late. Texas accepted both major parties’ certifications even though they were days past the deadline. Louisiana’s Secretary of State arranged to meet with the major parties’ representatives during a Hurricane in 2008 when the office was closed to everyone else in order to timely accept their papers. Seems to be a pattern.
How fucking hypocritical can you get???
This same SOS almost kicked off all minor parties in 2012 because were minutes late filing.
“Technically we could have kept them off the ballot but would that have been in the best interest of the voters in the First District?” said Bennett. “If we err we will do so on the side of being inclusive.”
So ballot access laws are not in the interest of the voters so can we all get qualified, Mr. Bennett?