Since our last update:
At Ballot Access News:
Americans Elect Web Page Posts New National Ballot Access Petition Count
… Read more ...The Americans Elect web page now says the group has obtained 1,903,444 signatures on petitions to get on the ballot, so far. This contrasts with the figure of three weeks ago, which was 1,829,264.
from Ballot Access News
Briefing Schedule Set in Nader Lawsuit Against Democratic National Committee for 2004 Behavior
February 16th, 2011
The Maine Supreme Court has set a briefing schedule in Nader v Maine Democratic Party, et al, case no. washington-county-10-678. This is the tort lawsuit filed in 2009 in which Nader argues that the Democratic National Committee and its allies, in 2004, filed meritless challenges to his ballot access petitions, and engaged in dirty tricks against his circulators.… Read more ...
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 with the form of the name on voter registration records.… Read more ...
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.… Read more ...
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 everyone is on this time.… Read more ...
[Posted by Paulie]
The Maryland Green Party submitted 14,842 signatures and the Maryland Libertarian Party submitted 13,787 signatures towards a requirement of 10,000 valid signatures. The deadline for submitting additional signatures has been extended to March 7:
… Read more ...The Maryland petition deadline for a party that wishes to obtain, or regain, its qualified status is not until August 2012.
The West Virginia Constitution Party petition for U.S. Senate has enough valid signatures, so the party’s U.S. Senate nominee, Jeff Becker, will appear on the November ballot.
The New York Libertarian Party statewide petition also succeeded. Although someone filed a general challenge to that petition, the challenger did not subsequently follow through with specific objections.… Read more ...
The Libertarian Party statewide slate of candidates in Illinois submitted approximately 45,000 signatures at the end of June, but the petition was challenged. The “binder check” process is now complete and the party seems to have 33,545 valid signatures, well above the legal requirement of 25,000.
… Read more ...Emailed to contact.ipr@gmail.com:
An Update for the Kansas 3rd Congressional District – House of Representatives
A historic moment has come about in the 3rd Congressional District of KS. Having met Friday with our Petition Drive Coordinator, Bob Schmidt, we have now surpassed our goal of 5,000 signatures on our Kansas Independent Nomination Petition.… Read more ...
Steven Elliott reports in Toke of the Town
… Read more ...Washington drug agents have illegally seized signed petitions for marijuana legalization, according to organizers of ballot initiative I-1068.
Marijuana advocacy group Sensible Washington says it has learned that a dozen signed copies of the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which it is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNET drug task force.
Emailed to contact.ipr@gmail.com:
Do petition signers have a constitutional right to keep their names undisclosed? Or should their support of various initiatives be made public? Without a doubt, keep the names private.
Currently before the U.S. Supreme Court is a case named Doe v. Reed. At issue is whether or not the names of people who signed an initiative petition to repeal Washington State’s same-sex domestic partner law should become public record.… Read more ...
from Ballot Access News
Pennsylvania Attorney General Indicts Four More State Employees for Using Public Resources on Campaigns
December 19th, 2009
… Read more ...On December 15, the Pennsylvania Attorney General indicted four more Pennsylvania public employees or officials connected with the state legislature, for using public resources to help on election campaigns. One of those indicted is a legislator, Bill DeWeese, who is the House Democratic whip and who has been a Speaker of the House in the past.