Ballot Access News: On March 11, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that the petition to put a new political party on the ballot, 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, does not violate the State Constitution. Here is the 17-page opinion, and the 9-page dissent. For 2012, the law requires 85,379 signatures. Except in [...]

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Ballot Access News: The March 12 Birmingham News has this editorial, strongly endorsing SB 17, the bill that lowers the number of signatures needed for minor parties and independent candidates to get on the ballot. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link. IPR note: See Alabama Ballot Access Bill Has Hearing Today Alabama Ballot [...]

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Excerpt from an article by Christopher Peleo-Lazar in the National Journal: Indiana’s laws for independent candidates are some of the toughest in the nation. In 2000, Ralph Nader did not reach the two percent threshold to get on the ballot, though Pat Buchanan did (Nader, running as a write-in, actually won more votes than Buchanan [...]

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Ballot Access News: Egyptian voters are expected to vote in favor of a proposal next week to liberalize ballot access for presidential candidates. Another reform proposal is expected to be announced after the referendum. It would ease ballot access for all political parties, for all office. See this story. Apparently the proposal will permit any [...]

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Ballot Access News: On March 10, a California Superior Court Judge in Solano County tentatively dismissed the lawsuit King v Robinson on procedural issues. Here is the two-paragraph ruling. This case, or similar cases, have been pending since 2008. They concern the identity of the legitimate state officers of the American Independent Party of California. [...]

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From New York LP chair Mark Axinn via LP blog: Libertarian Party Candidate Files Lawsuit against NYS Board of Elections for Failure to Count Votes Warren Redlich, the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Governor of New York in the 2010 election, today filed a lawsuit in Albany County Supreme Court against the New York State Board [...]

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Ballot Access News: The Alabama Senate Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics & Elections Committee will hear SB 17 on March 8, Tuesday. This is the bill by Senator Cam Ward to lower the number of signatures for independent candidates (for office other than President) from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5%. Senator Ward is [...]

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Ballot Access News: Maryland State Senator Edward J. Pipkin (R-Stevensville) has introduced SB 630. It clarifies that petition signatures do not need to exactly match the name of that voter in voter registration records. Several years ago, the state’s highest state court issued a ruling that seemed to say that petition signatures must match perfectly [...]

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Ballot Access News: Senator Cam Ward (R-Alabaster) has introduced SB 17. It lowers the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5% of the last gubernatorial vote. It makes no change to the procedures for new or previously unqualified parties. Also, it has no effect on the [...]

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Ballot Access News: West Virginia State Senator Clark Barnes (R-Beverly) has introduced SB 417, to ease the definition of “political party.” The existing law, ever since 1916, has defined a political party as a group that polled at least 1% of the vote for Governor in the last gubernatorial election. SB 417 would define “political [...]

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Ballot Access News: According to this story in the New York Daily News, Thomas Golisano is one of the major financial backers of the movement to pass the National Popular Vote Plan bills. Golisano was the Independence Party’s gubernatorial candidate in New York in 1994, 1998, and 2002. Each time he ran, he received a [...]

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Ballot Access News: The Nashville/Davidson County Libertarian Party has set up this web page to help Tennessee activists lobby for a new, better ballot access law for minor parties. As the page explains, the old law was declared unconstitutional last year. The page also features an ideal new law. The wording for the new law [...]

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Ballot Access News: On February 2, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Keyes v Bowen, 188724, the case that argued the Secretary of State must investigate whether a presidential candidate meets the qualifications to be president, before listing him or her on the ballot. The case had been brought by (America’s Independent Party Presidential [...]

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Via http://peaceandfreedom.org/home/: The following press release was issued jointly by the Peace and Freedom Party and the California Green Party on January 26, 2011. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, January 26, 2011 Contact: Cres Vellucci 916/996-9170 Candidates Rejected for 4th Assembly Special Election Race Charge Rules Unfairly Prevented Them From Running, Limiting Voter Choice; Lawsuit Considered [...]

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Ballot Access News: Connecticut Senator Andrew Maynard (D-Stonington) has introduced Proposed Bill 778, which cuts the number of signatures for statewide and U.S. House candidates, in the general election, down to 1,000 signatures. Current law requires 7,500 signatures for statewide candidates, and signatures equal to 1% for U.S. House candidates, which is always close to [...]

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Yesterday evening, Andy Jacobs and I (Paulie) discussed harassment of ballot access petitioners, including Andy’s arrest outside a public library while petitioning to get the Green and Libertarian Parties back on the Maryland ballot. For the first hour of the show we were joined by Maryland Green Party Co-Chair Brian Bittner. Listen to the show [...]

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UPDATE: I screwed up last week and scheduled the show for 15 minutes, and Andy also was not on the call. This time I have made sure that we will have long enough for the show. It will be on today (Monday) at 8 PM Eastern time, and I will also try to make sure [...]

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Ballot Access News: Robert J. Healey, Jr., the Cool Moose Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island last year, polled 39.15% of the total vote. This was the highest share of the vote for any “other” statewide nominee in Rhode Island since 1875, when independent gubernatorial candidate Rowland Hazard received 39.19% of the vote. [...]

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Ballot Access News: In the 2010 election, Tea Party candidates appeared on the general election ballot under the “Tea Party” label, for federal or state office, in Florida, Nevada, and New Jersey. Even though there were 17 Tea Party nominees in races with both a Democrat and a Republican also in the race, there is [...]

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Ballot Access News: On November 2, the Oregon Independent Party nominee for State Representative, 48th district, polled 42.71% of the vote in a two-person race against the incumbent Democrat. The Independent Party nominee was Jeff Caton, a professional financial planner. Although Oregon permits fusion, Caton was not the nominee of any party other than the [...]

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