Ballot Access News

August 1, 2016 – Volume 32, Number 3

FOUR BALLOT ACCESS WINS IN LAST 30 DAYS

Arizona : on July 19, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Eileen Willett ordered the Secretary of State to put the Green Party presidential nominee on the November ballot. Arizona Green Party v Reagan, cv-16-2027. This was the third time the Arizona Green Party had won a ballot access lawsuit. The first was in 1999, when the party won a case against a law that said only independent voters could sign for an independent candidate (Campbell v Hull). The second was a 2010 case against the ban on out-of-state circulators (Arizona Green Party v Bennett).

The 2016 case was filed after the Green Party missed the June 1 deadline for certifying the names of its presidential elector candidates. The Secretary of State said that, because the filing was late, she would not put the Green ticket on the November ballot. The party then sued and argued that the June 1 deadline is unconstitutional. In response, the Secretary decided not to try to defend the deadline. Because the state conceded, the case was settled quickly. The only other state with an early deadline for submission of the names of presidential elector candidates is Georgia, which has a July 1 deadline for independent candidates.

The reason the Arizona deadline is so early is that before 1988, presidential elector candidates were chosen in the primary. Nowadays they are chosen in party meetings, which can be much later in the year. The Libertarian Party had missed the Arizona deadline in 1996, and had filed a state court lawsuit to overcome the problem. That case won, but did not cause the legislature to improve the deadline. But now, the Secretary of State says she will ask the 2017 session of the legislature for a later deadline.

Arkansas : on July 15, U.S. District Court Judge James M. Moody, Jr., struck down a law that new parties (which nominate by convention) must choose all their non-presidential nominees at least a year before the election. Libertarian Party of Arkansas v Martin, e.d., 4:15cv-635. That law had been passed in 2015. The decision says that states cannot require convention parties to hold their meetings earlier than the date of the primaries for the old parties. In 2016 the Democratic and Republican Parties held their primaries in March, and in 2018 the primaries are in May.

The decision says the burden on the Libertarian Party is "slight" but that there is no state interest in requiring the party's convention to be so early.

The party had held a convention in October 2015 and had nominated 17 candidates, who were on the November 2016 ballot no matter what the lawsuit decided. But then it had held a second convention in February 2016, and nominated four more candidates for the legislature, and four more for county office. The judge refused to put these last eight candidates on the ballot. The county candidates could not be o because the party hadn't sued the county elections officials. The four legislative candidates can't be on because the judge felt there was no reason why they couldn't have been nominated in the party's first convention.

This is only the fourth time any court has held that states can't require convention parties to choose their nominees before the primary parties choose theirs. The other cases had been in South Carolina in 1970 and 1972, and Alabama in 1980. Such cases are rare because virtually no state ever even requires convention parties to hold their conventions earlier than primary parties.

Maryland : on July 26, the State Board of Elections agreed to settle Dorsey v Lamone, the case filed last year against the number of signatures for a statewide independent candidate. The Board signed a Settlement Agreement, which says, "Whereas, the Parties agree that a court would likely find that unaffiliated candidates for statewide office in Maryland now face a disproportionate burden on their ability to gain ballot access as compared to new party candidates, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs and Defendants agree that for the 2016 general election and for any special general election in 2017, the Board will accept 10,000 signatures."

The lawsuit had been filed by Greg Dorsey, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. His lawsuit argued the state had no need to require him to collect 40,603 signatures when new parties only need 10,000. On June 10, Judge George Russell had issued a ruling, denying the state's attempt to dismiss the case and implying that the law was shaky.

The settlement also says that the Attorney General and the Board of Elections will ask the legislature to pass a bill in 2017 lowering the statewide petition to 10,000.

Pennsylvania : on June 30, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel issued an order in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, e.d., 5:12cv-2726. The order says that the number of signatures for statewide minor party and