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[benjipwns]

http://www.politico.com/states/flor...lock-third-part-presidential-candidate-105562

On Aug. 31, the Independent Party of Florida formally filed nominating papers to make McMullin its presidential candidate in Florida. McMullin is a former CIA operative and Republican staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives who was recruited by a group of GOP consultants, including Florida’s Rick Wilson, looking for an alternative to Donald Trump.

In a Sept. 7 letter, Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews informed Ernest Bach, chair of the Independent Party of Florida, that its nominee for president could not be on the general election ballot.

The department, which is overseen by Scott, said the Independent Party of Florida could not get its nominee placed on the general election because it is not recognized as a “national party” by the Federal Election Commission.

McMullin’s camp has said it thinks the state’s decision is blatantly political because Scott not only supports Trump, but runs a super PAC supporting him. Most believe McMullin would take Republican votes from Trump, which could make a difference in a state known for tight presidential races.

“We know what his [Rick Scott’s] preference is,” said Sarah Rumpf, a McMullin consultant. “He has a very public, visible role as head of the PAC, head cheerleader, head fundraiser, and is a top surrogate for Donald Trump.”

The FEC officially recognizes 13 official national parties. The Scott administration has said since the Independent Party of Florida is not recognized by the FEC, state law does not allow its presidential nominees to get on the ballot.

“No, I do not think in any way that this reflects a compelling state interest that justifies exclusion from the ballot,” said David Schoen, a New York-based attorney who has worked to help get ballot access for minor party candidates ballot access.

He says the state’s interpretation of the FEC rule is wrong because the “national party” designation is for fundraising — not ballot access. The difference designations are important because of caps on campaign contributions. Federal accounts held by state parties, for instance, can only get $10,000 from an individual, but national party contributions are capped at $33,400.

“At the last minute, they [the state] change, creating havoc and really hurting folks who spent a lot of time and effort pursuing ballot access,” Schoen said. “Very unfair.”

A similar conclusion was reached by Richard Winger, a libertarian who publishes and edits Ballot Access News. He called the Scott administration’s decision “irrational” because the FEC designation is tied to fundraising.

“The purpose of the FEC’s recognition of national committees concerns campaign finance, not ballot access,” he wrote on his site after the Scott administration’s decision. “Federal campaign laws allow individuals to contribute much more money to national committees of political parties than to other campaign committees.”

The Scott administration's recent decision seemingly runs contrary to a different 2011 ruling made by his Department of State.

That one dealt with a group called Americas Elect, which was pushing to get a presidential nominee on Florida’s ballot. The group, which was a non-profit organized as a 501(c)4, formed to advocate for a national online primary.

In a Sept. 2011 letter to an attorney representing the group, Department of State officials said they only have a “ministerial function” in qualifying candidates, so they could put up no road blocks as long as filing paperwork was on time and complete.

“Therefore, if a minor political party registered in Florida files the required certificate, which is complete on its face … the Secretary ‘shall order the names of the candidates nominated by the minor political party to be included on the ballot,'” read a letter signed by Daniel Nordby, the department’s former general counsel.

He said DOS would allow a candidate nominated by the group on the ballot, but clarified the “Department’s ministerial placement of the party’s candidates on the ballot” would not prevent an outside legal challenge. The letter specifically mentions the same statutes the department cited when blocking the Florida Independent Party’s general election ballot access.

“So Florida and other states were very respectful of Americans Elects and went out of their way to ease ballot access … they didn’t want to get sued,” Winger, who edits Ballot Access News, told POLITICO Florida. “Now that the parties are suffering in Florida and are less powerful, the state feels it can change the rule with impunity.”

When asked about the ruling, Beatrice, the department spokeswoman, pointed to a change made to the statutes in question during the 2011 Legislation session. The department ruling, though, came in September of that year, which was months after the legislative session.

Those who have worked in the past to get ballot access for minor parties say that both major political parties generally try to put up hurdles.

“The good ol’ boy network is alive and well it seems,” said Jonathan Hansen, a Nevada attorney whose practice area includes ballot access. “The ‘major’ parties will do anything to retain power by limiting access to minor parties.”

Florida’s 2012 presidential ballot included candidates from at least five parties not recognized as national by the FEC.

In a statement sent to POLITICO Florida Friday afternoon, Secretary of State Ken Detzner acknowledged that the agency “made a legal error in 2012 when we granted these minor parties placement on the ballot."

The department argues that, because the 2012 inclusion of those minor parties was a mistake, it is not a precedent for giving McMullin ballot access.

In the 2012 presidential election, which President Barack Obama won by less than 75,000 votes over Republican Mitt Romney, more than 10,000 votes were cast for candidates Detzner says were not legally on the ballot.

"The reality is that the Scott administration dug this unconstitutional, vague statute out of the mothballs to use it as a weapon against Evan for political purposes,” Rumpf said.

The Independent Party of Florida has appealed the ruling, citing, in part, the 2011 ruling, and the fact that the FEC uses “advisory opinions” to define a national party, which are not definitive.

“First and foremost, our party is the state’s third largest party,” wrote Bach, the party chair. “Our 258,000 members should not be disenfranchised from voting for their party’s nominees during this very important election cycle.”

Rumpf said that if the appeal fails they will consider legal action to gain ballot access, but that’s a last option.

“Unlike the Trump campaign, the McMullin campaign is very serious about being prudent with any penny a donor gives us,” she said.

In fairness, it is more likely to be less Rick Scott personally, than the Florida Republican Party. As noted, this is standard procedure. From what I can tell these are five parties that shouldn't have been on the ballot in 2012 according to Florida now:
Peace and Freedom Party, Justice Party, Socialism and Liberation, Objectivist Party, America's Party...three of them are left-wing parties, only one is pro-life/anti-gay

The Florida Secretary of State is appointed by the Governor. This particular one has made news before:

MIAMI — The Justice Department has asked Florida to stop searching for and purging the names of possible ineligible voters, saying that the state appears to be in violation of federal voter protection laws.

Ken Detzner, the Florida secretary of state, who leads the attempt to clear voter rolls, said it was the state’s job to ensure the integrity of its voter lists. He expressed frustration with the Homeland Security Department for not responding to requests for access to a federal immigration database that could help verify voter eligibility. But the department said there were legal and technical difficulties in sharing the information.

“Federal law expressly requires your agency to respond to state inquiries seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within its jurisdiction for any purpose authorized by law,” Mr. Detzner wrote on Thursday to Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary.

A spokesman for the Florida Division of Elections said the state was determined to uphold its own law.

“Bottom line is: we are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot,” said the spokesman, Chris Cate. But the process of identifying noncitizen voters has proved to be flawed. Some people on the list have come forward with proof that they are citizens. Gov. Rick Scott began to push for the voter roll review last year. He asked former Secretary of State Kurt Browning to try to identify noncitizen voters on the rolls, Mr. Browning told The Associated Press. But Mr. Browning found that using the state’s driver’s license database did not provide accurate results. Lacking confidence in the search, Mr. Browning resigned early this year.

Since 2010, Florida residents have been required to show proof of citizenship to receive a driver’s license. But if someone receives a driver’s license, and then becomes a citizen, the database will not reflect the change until the license is renewed.

The secretary of state, Mr. Detzner, proceeded with the governor’s plan. A search of the database turned up an initial list of about 180,000 people who were registered to vote but could be noncitizens. The list has so far been narrowed to about 2,600. Florida has 11 million registered voters.

Although Mr. Detzner acknowledged the flaws in the database, he forwarded the names to county election supervisors. He recommended that supervisors send letters to the people on the list, requiring them to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days, or their names would be dropped from the voter rolls.

Florida is also in the process of checking voter rolls for newly identified felons. The governor has made it more difficult for felons to regain their voter rights. In 2004, the state was forced to stop its search for felons on the rolls after the method it was using was found to be flawed. In the disputed 2000 election, state officials removed more than 173,000 people identified as felons or ineligible to vote from the rolls. Civil rights groups and county election supervisors said the lists contained many errors.

Meanwhile, West Virginia is also striking candidates from the ballot because rules are ever changing even when they don't:

On Thursday, September 15, the West Virginia Supreme Court issued an opinion in Wells v State, 16-0779. It construed the West Virginia election law to require all candidates who petition for the November ballot to have filed a declaration of candidacy on the second Monday in January. On September 16, the Secretary of State phoned various candidates who had petitioned to be on the November ballot and told them that they will be removed from the ballot (even though they had already been certified to be on the ballot) as a result of the decision.
...

In 1996, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled this section only applies to candidates running in a primary. That case was State ex rel Browne v Hechler, 476 S.E.2d 559. It allowed Harry Browne, the Libertarian presidential nominee that year, to get on the ballot even though he had not filed any declaration of candidacy. The current opinion says that the Browne case doesn’t control the outcome because another statute was amended in 2015. Page ten of the opinion says, “West Virginia Code 3-5-7 has undergone a critical amendment since that time.”

This appears to be an error. To the best of my ability, I have not been able to find any bill that passed in 2015 that amended section 3-5-7. The opinion does not say the chapter number of any legislation that passed in 2015, amending section 3-5-7. If the opinion did say the chapter number, it would be much easier to research whether the court made a factual error or not. There seems to be no annotated West Virginia code on-line that includes 2015 chapters, so I can’t be certain. But I have read all the election law bills that passed in 2015 in the West Virginia legislature and none of them amended 3-5-7.

Regardless of whether the statute was changed in 2015 or not, a January filing deadline for independent or minor party presidential candidates is clearly unconstitutional. West Virginia is in the Fourth Circuit. In 1980 it struck down Maryland’s deadline for independent presidential candidates, in Anderson v Morris, 636 F 2d 55. It said, “We cannot conclude that Maryland’s early filing date furthers the asserted state interest in any respect…Failing to achieve a legitimating purpose, Maryland’s early filing date for presidential candidates for nomination by petition is invalid.” Also, of course, the U.S. Supreme Court said the same thing for the entire nation in Anderson v Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983), striking down a March 20 deadline from Ohio.

The West Virginia recent opinion has no discussion whatsoever of the constitutional precedents striking down early deadlines for independent candidates. The court seems oblivious that 55 court opinions around the nation have struck down such early deadlines.

 

[benjipwns]

Florida is also doing the same thing to other parties, including a FEC recognized national party committee: http://ballot-access.org/2016/09/07...alify-three-minor-party-presidential-filings/

The Party for Socialism and Liberation, and America’s Party, were already ballot-qualified parties in Florida, yet their presidential filings have been rejected because they are not recognized by the Federal Election Commission as national committees.

First, the Secretary of State has no official knowledge of which parties are recognized by the FEC. Second, the law, if enforced, would be discriminatory because the FEC will not grant national committee status to new parties; only parties that have gone through a presidential and a congressional election can obtain it. Third, the FEC itself is not certain which parties are recognized as national committees. I talked to an FEC attorney about this on April 26, 2010. He said it is an “open question” as to whether the Natural Law Party, for example, is still a national committee.

The Socialist Party is recognized by the FEC as a national committee. But Florida won’t print its presidential candidate on the November ballot either. The Secretary of State said on September 6 that the party’s application for party status, filed on August 29, does not meet the requirements of the law. But the letter from the Secretary of State did not explain why. The Socialist Party had submitted the exact same documents in 2016 that it had filed in 2012.

UPDATE: two Florida officials kindly telephoned me on Thursday, September 8, and gave me reasons why the Socialist Party’s filing was rejected. The first reason is that the Socialist Party’s bylaws provide for dues for members. The state believes that it has the power to tell parties that they must not be organizations with requirements for members to pay dues. However, the First Amendment protects any political party’s right to establish itself as a dues-paying organization, and parties of the left in the United States and around the world have a very long tradition of requiring members to pay dues. The Socialist Party is not saying that persons cannot register into the party if they don’t pay dues. But it is saying that its dues-paying members are the only persons eligible to help choose party officers.

 

[Valhelm]

Rick Scott proving himself to be worse than Trump

 

[jack_package_200]

Something something both sides are the same something something

Fuck Rick Scott

 

[Ponn]

Rick Scott proving himself to be worse than Trump

He's already proven that, and has also shown how a businessman turned politician can do damage with power for selfish reasons. And unfortunately get re-elected by stupid people here in Florida.

 

[benjipwns]

Something something both sides are the same something something

Well, in this case they are.

To pluck just one recent story: http://www.concordmonitor.com/Shawn...ballot-in-NH-first-congressional-race-4771112

The New Hampshire Democratic Party was unsuccessful in keeping independent candidate Shawn O’Connor off the ballot for the 1st congressional district race.

The state Ballot Law Commission found Thursday that O’Connor collected the required 1,500 voter signatures needed to compete, dismissing an NHDP complaint that more than two dozen were ineligible. The decision was 4-1.

O’Connor announced in June he would seek the seat as an independent. He submitted 1,508 voter signatures this month to appear on the November ballot.

The NHDP contested the count and filed a complaint with the Ballot Law Commission alleging that six signatures were duplicates and 26 were ineligible because those voters also signed nomination papers for rival congressional candidates which is not permitted under state law.

Though other stories about Kafka election law can be funnier:

On September 13, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office issued official election returns for the August 30 primary for the Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Republican primaries. No one appeared on the primary ballots of the Green Party and the Libertarian Party for U.S. Senate. But both parties had a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate and various other offices.

The Green Party declared write-in candidate in the Green primary for U.S. Senate, Gary Swing, received 238 write-ins. Under the law, he is the nominee and his name will be printed on the November ballot for U.S. Senate. But the Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate, Merissa Hamilton, received 1,286 write-ins in the Libertarian primary, and she will not be allowed to be on the November ballot. Libertarians for statewide office this year needed approximately 4,000 write-ins to be nominated, but Greens only needed one write-in.

The law treats “new” parties differently than “old” parties. The Green Party is considered “new” because it last did its party petition in the period June 2013-May 2014. The Libertarian Party has not had to do a party petition since 1992, because it remains on by keeping its registration above two-thirds of 1%. The Libertarian Party is currently in court, arguing against the minimum number of write-ins needed to nominate in the party’s own primary. The law penalizes minor parties for being successful in their voter registration efforts.

The head of the state Republican Party Wednesday asked the Montana Supreme Court to remove the Libertarian secretary of state candidate from Montana’s November ballot, for not filing proper campaign forms.

Jeff Essmann’s filing for “extraordinary relief” said Libertarian Roger Roots failed to file forms required of every other candidate – personal financial disclosure and campaign-finance reports – and there is not qualified to be on the November ballot.

Essmann’s request comes a few days before county election officials start preparing the ballot, which goes out to absentee voters in early October.

He asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order, blocking any ballot-printing until the case is resolved.

“Without immediate Supreme Court action, voters will receive an illegal ballot and be able to vote for an unqualified person, thereby impugning the integrity of the 2016 election,” wrote Essmann’s attorney, Emily Jones.

The court did not issue a restraining order Wednesday, but it did order Secretary of State Linda McCulloch to notify county election officials about the case – and gave McCulloch, Commissioner of Political Practices and Roots to respond by noon next Monday.

The lawsuit said Motl and McCulloch improperly ignored the GOP’s requests to disqualify Roots.

Both Motl and McCulloch said Wednesday that Roots filed the required forms, and that he is properly on the ballot.

Things are a tiny bit harder in China though:

An independent candidate in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi has vowed to run in forthcoming elections to his local People's Congress in spite of official threats and periods of detention.

Yang Tingjian, who also goes by the pen-name Yang Wei, says he will go ahead with his bid for election to the Hecheng township People's Congress on Sept. 9 despite being kept under 24-hour surveillance by local authorities.

Yang, whose candidacy registration was rejected on the grounds that he isn't a member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party ...

Yang was placed under 10 days' administrative detention after an altercation with officials when he went to consult law books to prove that nonparty members also have the right to stand.

China's electoral guidelines state that candidates may put themselves forward if they receive recommendations from at least 10 local voters in direct elections to district and township level People's Congresses.

According to a summary of the country's election law published in the English-language China Daily newspaper: "All citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of ethnic background, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education level, property status or length of residence."

In practice, state-run media has said that there is "no such thing" as an independent candidate, and those who try to use such elections as a platform to represent the least privileged in society soon find themselves the target of official retaliation.

Every 3 to 5 years, China "elects" more than 2 million lawmakers at the county and township levels across the country to local-level People's Congresses in more than 2,000 counties and 30,000 townships.

But powerful vested interests mean that the majority of local "elections" are a fait accompli, consolidating the power of local leaders.

Local party officials have previously used intimidation and detention, tampering with physical ballot boxes, and paying for extra votes to maintain their grip on the outcome.

Apart from a token group of "democratic parties" that never oppose or criticize the ruling party, opposition political parties are banned in China, and those who set them up are frequently handed lengthy jail terms.