Virginia: Slew of election reforms clear Virginia Senate | Washington Examiner

The Virginia Senate moved Monday to ease restrictions for presidential candidates to get on the ballot after a handful of Republican hopefuls failed to qualify for the state’s GOP primary last year. Presidential candidates need 10,000 petition signatures, including 400 from each congressional district, to make Virginia’s presidential primary ballot, some of the toughest standards in the country. Under a bill now headed to the House, candidates would need only 5,000 signatures. The bill, which passed 23-17, was backed by Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who criticized the current system after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas were the only two candidates to qualify for Virginia’s Republican primary last year. Texas Gov. Rick Perry handed in only about 6,000 signatures, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich fell shy of 10,000. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann didn’t hand in any petitions.

Virginia: Cuccinelli seeks bipartisan backing to ease ballot access rules | The Washington Post

Amid fierce partisan debates over how, when and in which districts Virginians can vote, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II is working to assemble a rare bipartisan coalition to decide who gets on the ballot. Cuccinelli, the likely Republican nominee in this year’s gubernatorial race against presumptive Democratic choice Terry McAuliffe, has become one of the more polarizing figures in commonwealth politics. Beloved by conservative activists and disliked by many Democrats, Cuccinelli is not often known as a consensus-builder. Yet Cuccinelli said he is hoping he can get lawmakers to set aside ongoing squabbles over redistricting and electoral college legislation to change Virginia’s laws for ballot access, the subject of wide criticism in recent elections. The critics have included former Virginia Democratic Party chairman Paul Goldman, who has teamed up with Cuccinelli for the effort.

South Carolina: State Senate passes election law fix | Aiken Standard

A bill meant to prevent another ballot-tossing election mess is heading to the South Carolina House. The Senate had a third reading Wednesday for legislation syncing the candidate filing process for incumbents and those seeking to be officeholders. It also allows those who don’t file properly to pay a fine and remain on the ballot, as long as they fix it before primaries. “We fixed it!” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Larry Martin, R-Pickens, noting that the bill is designed to address only last year’s election debacle. “I tried to keep from wading into the weeds. We needed to respond and address what happened last year.”

Virginia: Panel votes to ease candidate rules, tighten voter IDs | HamptonRoads.com

A Senate subcommittee has blessed bills that would make it easier for presidential candidates to qualify for elections, but harder for some voters to cast ballots by eliminating some currently accepted forms of identification. Those measures, both sponsored by Republican Sen. Dick Black of Loudoun County, received favorable recommendations from a subset of the Committee on Privileges and Elections Wednesday morning. Black’s SB690 would cut in half the number of Virginia voter signatures that candidates must submit to qualify for primary or general election ballots – the current standard is 10,000 signatures, with 400 from each of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts. The proposal would reduce the threshold to 5,000 signatures, including 200 from each congressional district.

Papua New Guinea: Disqualified Papua Candidates Take Election Commission to Court | The Jakarta Globe

Two potential candidates for Papua’s gubernatorial elections have reported the poll commission to the state administrative court, after they were disqualified by the Papua General Elections Commission on Monday. The elections commission, known as the KPU, declared that the running pair, Barnabas Suebo and John Tabo, had not passed the verification phase to run for the governor position. “On Friday, we registered our lawsuit against the Papua province KPU,” said Mathias Rafra, a spokesman for John.

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico Voters Who Didn’t Vote in 2008, and Who Didn’t Re-register in Time, Lose Ability to Vote in 2012 | Ballot Access News

Puerto Rico has elections for important office only every four years, not every two years. The Puerto Rico Delegate to the U.S. House, and the Governor, have four-year terms, up in presidential election years. The federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires that states (as well as Puerto Rico) not remove voters from the registration rolls unless or until they miss two elections. But Puerto Rico law says voters should be removed from the rolls if they miss voting in one election. On October 17, a U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico ruled that the federal law has precedence over Puerto Rico law, and ordered that the 330,902 voters who had been removed from the registration rolls because they didn’t vote in 2008 be restored to the rolls. But late on October 18, the First Circuit reversed that, saying it isn’t practical to put the voters back on the rolls. They cannot now vote, because it is too late for them to re-register. The First Circuit vote was 2-1. The majority include Judges Kermit Lipez, a Clinton appointee; and Jeffrey Howard, a Bush Jr. appointee. The dissenter is Judge Juan Torruella. On October 19, one of the voters who had filed the case asked for a rehearing en banc.

National: In Face of Voter ID Laws, Democrats Push to Expand Ballot Access | NYTimes.com

At a time when Republicans have moved to enact tougher qualifications for voting in states around the country, Democrats have begun to push voter registration laws in the opposite direction in states they control, especially here. In the last few weeks, potential voters in California have been able to register online for the first time, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that will allow residents to register and vote on Election Day. Connecticut passed similar legislation this year, and voting rights advocacy groups hope as many as five states might join them next year. Democratic lawmakers here described the legislation as a potential counterweight to Republican-backed laws in other parts of the country requiring photo identification to vote and making it more difficult to register. “It’s extremely important that as some states in the nation are moving to suppress voter turnout, California is moving forward to expand voter participation,” said Mike Feuer, a Democratic state assemblyman who sponsored the Election Day registration law. “I hope California is the catalyst for other states to encourage civic engagement and participation.”

New York: Independence Party Decides to Nominate No One for President | Ballot Access News

According to the New York State Board of Elections, the ballot-qualified Independence Party has decided not to nominate any presidential candidate. This is the first time a ballot-qualified party in New York has declined to nominate anyone for President since 1984, when the Right to Life Party had declined to nominate anyone for President. Before that, the last time in New York state was when the Conservative Party nominated no one. However, the only reason the New York Conservative Party ran no one for President in 1968 was that the party wanted to cross-endorse the Republican nominee (Richard Nixon) but the New York Republican Party refused to let the Conservative Party cross-endorse the Republican slate.

Kansas: Kansas State Board Considers Removing Obama From Ballot | TPM

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an informal advisor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said on Thursday he and his fellow members of a state board were considering removing President Barack Obama from the Kansas ballot this November. Kobach is part of the State Objections Board along with Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, all Republicans. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that on Thursday the board agreed consider whether to take Obama off the ballot because they said they lacked sufficient evidence about his birth certificate. “I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” Kobach said, according to the Capital-Journal. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.” The board is looking at a complaint filed by Joe Montgomery, of Manhattan, Kan., who claimed the Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen and so is ineligible to be president. The man appears to be part of a group of conspiracy theorists known as “birthers,” who deny Obama’s birth certificate is real.

Pennsylvania: Challenge Process of Libertarian Petition Pauses for Determination of Some Legal Issues | Ballot Access News

After almost three weeks of Pennsylvania state court proceedings in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, approximately 41,000 signatures on the Libertarian Pennsylvania statewide petition have been processed. There are still 8,500 unprocessed signatures. “Processed” means that both sides have looked at each processed signature, and either both sides agree that the signature is valid, or both sides agree it isn’t valid, or the two sides disagree. Many of the disagreements hinge on certain unresolved legal issues, such as whether a petition signature is valid if the signer put the month and day in the “date” column, but not the year. The printed forms all says “Revised January 2012″ at the bottom, so it is obvious that all the signatures were signed in 2012. But the challengers say those signatures aren’t valid.

Michigan: U.S. District Court Issues Decision Explaining Why Sore Loser Law Applies to Gary Johnson | Ballot Access News

On the afternoon of September 7, U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Borman issued this25-page opinion in Libertarian Party of Michigan v Ruth Johnson, eastern district, 12-cv-12782. He had ruled the day before that the Libertarian Party has lost this case, but only on September 7 did his opinion explain why. The decision implies on page 17 that the precedent set in 1980 by John B. Anderson, who ran in Michigan’s presidential primary and also ran as a minor party nominee, doesn’t apply because Anderson’s name wasn’t on the Republican primary ballot in Michigan. But, that implication is mistaken. Anderson’s name did appear on the Republican presidential primary ballot in 1980 and his votes were counted. The decision says that the Michigan Supreme Court had removed Anderson’s name from the 1980 presidential primary ballot. Because this writer is on vacation, and has no access to his home files or a law library, this assertion must remain a mystery for a few days, unless someone else has more information.

South Carolina: Lawsuit could lead to another wave of 2012 primaries in South Carolina | TheState.com

A disqualified Charleston County Council candidate has asked a judge to order a new Republican primary in his district – a request that, if it succeeds, could lead to another wave of election lawsuits across the state. Brian Moody, a Republican, was disqualified along with more than 250 other candidates after the state Supreme Court ruled they did not file their financial paperwork properly. Subsequently, candidates across the state have tried, mostly in vain, to get back on the ballot. But, last week, when a state judge disqualified Paul Thurmond from a state Senate race for similar reasons, the judge ordered the GOP to hold a new primary, giving Thurmond a way back onto the ballot. The next day, Moody filed a lawsuit asking for the same thing. “It’s probably a ‘hail Mary,’ but if you’re already going to have a primary with my good friend Mr. Thurmond, why not have one for us?” Moody said.

Washington: Libertarian Party Files Lawsuit, Arguing Republican Party No Longer Meets the Definition of a Qualified Party | Ballot Access News

On August 15, the Washington state Libertarian Party filed a lawsuit in state court in Thurston County, arguing that the Secretary of State is illegally treating the Republican Party as a qualified party, and that the Republican Party is not a qualified party. The case is Libertarian Party of Washington State v Reed, 12-2-01683-3. Here is the Complaint. The Complaint points out that the Republican Party had no nominee for U.S. Senate in 2010, whereas the Democratic Party did have a nominee. Because Washington state uses the top-two system, the process by which the Democratic Party obtained a nominee was by action of its 2010 state convention. The Democratic state convention chose Patty Murray, the incumbent. The Republican Party 2010 state convention, faced with a contest between two Republicans, Dino Rossi and Clint Didier, decided to remain neutral and made no nomination and no endorsement.

Mongolia: A Crucial Week In Mongolia | Forbes

It appears that President Elbegdorj has gotten his way and former President Enkhbayar will not be able to stand in the parliamentary elections this coming Thursday. Enkhbayar’s appeal to the Constitutional Court will not be heard until tomorrow, a mere two days before the election. At that point, the Constitutional Court will decide whether or not to even accept and review his petition. With the way things have been handled thus far, Enkhbayar will not be a candidate for his Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. One would think that corrupting the democratic process to this point would be enough, but the current Mongolian government has gone even further. The Sukhhbaatar District Court has ruled that Enkhbayar cannot leave the city until his trial thereby preventing him from campaigning for his party in the countryside, Elbegdorj’s homeland.

Mongolia: Ex-Leader Says Election Decision ‘Illegal’ | The Jakarta Globe

Mongolia’s former leader Nambar Enkhbayar said Tuesday a decision barring him from running in upcoming elections was “illegal”, as his corruption trial was postponed for the third time. Enkhbayar — who had planned to run in parliamentary polls on June 28 before being barred from doing so last week — faces five counts of graft dating back to his time as prime minister and president of the impoverished country. But on Tuesday his first hearing was postponed for the third time after he complained of not having enough time to go over the case files and because his lawyer had left the city. “The election committee denied my application to be a candidate. That was illegal so I gave a letter to the Constitutional Court to reconsider my candidacy for the election,” he told reporters outside court in Ulan Bator.

South Carolina: Ballot changes, remap blur lines | Times and Democrat

Thanks to redistricting, myriad uncontested races and ballot adjustments, area voters will need a program to assist with this week’s election process. Republican and Democratic primaries on June 12 are expected to happen on schedule despite past court rulings and political infighting. Whether you’ll cast your vote depends largely on where you live and in which party primary you participate.

Voting Blogs: U.S. Court of Appeals Says Government Never Needs to Count Write-in Votes | Ballot Access News

On June 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, issued a short, thoughtless opinion in Libertarian Party v District of Columbia Board of Elections. It says that because the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 said that the U.S. Constitution does not require states to print write-in space on ballots, therefore it follows logically that if governments do allow write-in space, the same government can refuse to count them.

California: Democrats are Largest Party in California’s 31st U.S. House District, But Top-Two Open Primary Leaves Party with No Candidate in November | Ballot Access News

California’s 31st U.S. House district ballot in November 2012 will list two Republicans, Gary G. Miller and Bob Dutton. At the June 5, 2012 primary, Miller placed first with 26.9% of the vote, and Dutton placed second, with 25.1% of the vote. However, the district has more registered Democrats than registered Republicans. The registration in the district is: Democratic 40.8%, Republican 35.3%, independent 19.3%, other parties 3.6%. The district is centered on San Bernardino County and had no incumbent running this year. Four Democrats, but only two Republicans, ran in the June 5 primary. It is virtually certain that if fewer Democrats had run, Pete Aguilar, a Democratic candidate and Mayor of Redlands, would have placed among the top two. Aguilar placed third, with 22.5% of the vote. Democrats had been expecting to win this seat in November, but now it is impossible, because no Democrat is on the November ballot.

Montana: Independent Candidate Petition Deadline Held Unconstitutional | Ballot Access News

On May 25, U.S. District Court Judge Sam Haddon ruled that Montana’s March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates is unconstitutionally early. The case is Kelly v McCulloch, cv-08-25. Montana’s petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates had been in June between 1973 and 2007, but in 2007 the legislature moved it to March. Here is the 22-page opinion.

Michigan: McCotter Could Get Booted from Ballot | Roll Call

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) is at risk of losing his place on the Aug. 7 primary ballot due to problems with his petition signatures, wreaking havoc on the GOP’s once secure hold on his seat. In a Friday statement, McCotter announced the Secretary of State had questioned whether he collected sufficient signatures to make the ballot. “I have been apprised my campaign may have submitted insufficient petition signatures to appear on the August primary ballot as a candidate for the 11th Congressional District’s Republican nomination,” he said in the late-night statement.

West Virginia: Officials question ballot procedures – Tennant still under fire for inmate on ballot | News and Sentinel

The West Virginia Legislature can control who can get on a primary election ballot, but it can’t exceed federal law on a candidate’s eligibility, election officials said. State officials and others have been looking at options after imprisoned felon Keith Judd attracted nearly 41 percent of the vote against President Barack Obama this month in the West Virginia primary. While there have been criticisms Judd should never have gotten on the ballot, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said Judd met all of the legal requirements to be on the ballot. Judd qualified for the Democratic primary ballot after he mailed in a candidacy form and paid a $2,500 filing fee from Texas. He’s serving a 17-year federal prison sentence in Texas. Statewide results from the May 8 primary show Judd with 73,138 votes to Obama’s 106,770.

South Carolina: No new candidates allowed; primary ballots set | TheState.com

The South Carolina Election Commission told the state Republican Party on Thursday that it effectively can’t put a challenger to Gov. Nikki Haley’s chief legislative opponent back on the June primary ballot. The commission said in an email Thursday the state GOP can’t recertify state Senate candidate Katrina Shealy, two weeks after decertifying her and other contenders. It noted the state Supreme Court set a noon May 4 deadline for the GOP and Democratic parties to submit their lists of candidates who properly filed financial forms, and that ruling must be heeded. Shealy was among some 200 candidates for offices statewide decertified for not filing correctly. “To accept candidates after that would be in violation of that order,” election commission spokesman Chris Whitmire told The Associated Press. “The June primary ballots are set. Ballots have been printed. Voting machines have been prepared, and voters are voting.”

South Carolina: Senate approves bill to clear future election chaos | MidlandsConnect.com

The South Carolina Senate approved a bill Wednesday that could head off the election chaos that is currently swirling throughout South Carolina. Earlier this month, a state Supreme Court ruling resulted in almost 200 candidates being tossed off June’s primary ballots after the court determined the political hopefuls did not properly file financial forms when filing to run for office. The Senate measure approved unanimously Wednesday would remove the Democratic and Republican parties from the filing process and synchronize the deadlines for incumbents and challengers to turn in financial paperwork. It does not apply retroactively, so it will not help candidates taken off ballots by the Supreme Court’s ruling.

National: Americans Don’t Elect to Use Americans Elect; 3rd Party Hits Wall? | TechPresident

As David Karpf wrote here ten days ago, the Americans Elect third-party experiment of 2012 looks like it has hit a dead end. No declared candidate is anywhere close to hitting the group’s requirement of earning 10,000 supporters across at least ten states, with at least 1,000 from each state. Former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer the closest at just 5,840. He has less than 600 from California. As Jonathan Tilove points out in his story in the Times-Picayune, that means Roemer has more followers on Twitter than he has supporters who actually want him on AE’s presidential ballot line. Americans Elect had an ambitious plan to hold several rounds of online voting to winnow down what its leaders had hoped would be a competitive field of national candidates, and spent a reported $35 million circulating ballot petitions and building the organizational and online infrastructure to attract those candidates to its fold. It also attracted a fair amount of media coverage for its efforts, and encomiums from the likes of Thomas Friedman, John Avlon and Lawrence Lessig. But it never caught on, in part for the reasons I outlined almost a year ago: the lack of transparency about its finances made potential supporters distrustful (even spawning a watchdog blog called AETransparency), and the evident lack of public interest in its founders’ evident desire to find a “centrist” candidate. It’s possible that AE could have evolved differently, but that would have required that the vehicle be more genuinely controlled by its supporters, and that was an option that AE’s leaders clearly didn’t want to allow.

South Carolina: Lawyer drops bid to reinstate candidates | TheState.com

An attorney is abandoning his effort to reinstate nearly 200 candidates left off of June 12 primary ballots by a South Carolina Supreme Court decision, saying Friday he is focusing instead solely on allegations the state violated the Voting Rights Act in sending separate ballots overseas for federal and local races. “The court has ordered Amanda Somers to focus on the issues where she has clear standing. And that we will do,” Todd Kincannon told The Associated Press. “Amanda Somers is focused entirely on military absentee ballots from here on. It’s clear at this point the military absent ballot issue is about the only issue left in this election.” Kincannon filed a federal last suit last week on Somers’ behalf, saying the state Senate hopeful’s candidacy was thrown into question after state Supreme Court justices ruled that financial and candidate-intent paperwork must be filed simultaneously.

Virginia: ACLU challenges ballot access law | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit in U.S. District Court, challenging Virginia’s statewide ballot access rules for minor-party presidential candidates. The ACLU Voting Rights Project and the ACLU of Virginia filed suit on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, challenging the Virginia law that imposes a state residency requirement on people who circulate ballot petitions. The party needs to collect 10,000 valid signatures — at least 400 from each of the state’s 11 congressional districts — by Aug. 24 to qualify for the general election ballot in November. The Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee is Gary Johnson, who, as a Republican, was governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003. The ACLU is seeking an injunction, saying the Libertarians will suffer “irreparable harm” if they cannot use people from out of state to circulate ballot petitions in Virginia.

West Virginia: State frets over felon’s performance | Politico.com

The nation has moved on after its brief fixation last week with the felon who won 41 percent against Barack Obama, but West Virginia continues to wrestle with the aftermath of its May 8 primary. Phil Kabler of the Charleston Gazette reported this weekend on two conspiracy theories making the rounds. The first holds that GOP operatives were working behind the scenes to gin up the vote for Keith Judd as a means of embarassing Obama. The second speculates that top Democratic Party officials “went to lengths to assure that West Virginia voters would not be aware that he was a convicted inmate sitting in a federal prison in Texas.”

Editorials: Buddy Roemer, the Anti-Spoiler | Lawrence Lessig/The Atlantic

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the some of us who believe that the corrupting influence of money in American politics is the most important issue facing this nation, and that those who believe like us face a difficult dilemma: neither major party candidate is going to make this his issue for this campaign (indeed, the Obama campaign has just airbrushed his criticism of Citizens United from their webpage). So those of us who think this way must either accept that the issue will go dark for four years at least, or push a third-party candidate who will make this his central issue. I grabbed the second horn of that dilemma, arguing here that supporters of corruption reform should join Americans Elect and endorse a reform candidate. Two obvious choices lead the Americans Elect pack: Buddy Roemer, the four-time congressman and former governor of Louisiana, and David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States. Both, I said, would be important reform candidates. Either could push corruption onto center stage.

Maryland: Keith Russell Judd, federal inmate who challenged Obama in West Virginia, tried to get on Maryland ballot | baltimoresun.com

Keith Russell Judd, better known as the federal inmate who scored 41 percent of the vote against President Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary, wanted to be on the ballot in Maryland, too. Without Judd in his path, Obama cruised to an 88 percent victory. Blame U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett, who last year dismissed Judd’s complaint against the Maryland State Board of Elections in which he alleged he was being wrongly kept on the ballot. Bennett referred to Judd, who is serving a 210-month sentence in a Texas federal prison for extortion, as a “prolific and vexatious litigant who has filed more than 748 cases in federal courts since 1997.” Restrictions or sanctions have been placed on Judd’s “abusive filings,” Bennett wrote, by at least six courts. He concluded Judd’s claims were “frivolous and a patent ruse to waste judicial time and resources.”

South Carolina: Lawyer drops bid to restore South Carolina ballot | AP/The Charlotte Observer

An attorney is abandoning his effort to reinstate nearly 200 candidates left off of June 12 primary ballots by a South Carolina Supreme Court decision, saying Friday he is focusing instead solely on allegations the state violated the Voting Rights Act in sending separate ballots overseas for federal and local races. “The court has ordered Amanda Somers to focus on the issues where she has clear standing. And that we will do,” Todd Kincannon told The Associated Press. “Amanda Somers is focused entirely on military absentee ballots from here on. It’s clear at this point the military absent ballot issue is about the only issue left in this election.” Kincannon filed a federal last suit last week on Somers’ behalf, saying the state Senate hopeful’s candidacy was thrown into question after state Supreme Court justices ruled that financial- and candidate-intent paperwork must be filed simultaneously.