Talk Elections

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/16/mitt-romney-might-not-be-on-the-washington-state-ballot-in-november/ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/16/mitt-romney-might-not-be-on-the-washington-state-ballot-in-november/)

Due to technicalities in Washington State law, American’s most famous Mormon, Mitt Romney, may not be on the ballot in the state come November because the Republican Party doesn’t currently qualify as a “major party” any more. The Stranger laid out the details earlier this month:

    RCW 29A.04.086 tells us that “”Major political party” means a political party of which at least one nominee for president, vice president, United States senator, or a statewide office received at least five percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding state general election in an even-numbered year.”

    In 2010, the only state-wide race was a race for U.S. Senate.

    The Republican Party did not nominate any candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010 because neither the Rossi contingent nor the Didier contingent wanted to risk losing a nomination vote at the 2010 state convention of the Republican Party.

    Because the “Top-2″ primary is only a winnowing primary – not a nominating primary – Mr. Rossi, who proceeded through the Top-2, was not the Republican Party nominee.

Because the two Republicans running for the US Senate seat in 2010 weren’t officially nominated by the Republican Party, that means the Republican Party didn’t get at least 5% of the vote in a statewide election. And that, in turn, means Romney would have had to file as a minor party candidate (requiring his campaign to collect at least a thousand voter signatures at a nominating convention taking place after the first Saturday of June and the last Saturday of July.) And, it seems, Romney’s campaign did not do that.

Back when The Stranger first reported on this, no one expected that Washington’s Secretary of State would actually leave Romney’s name off of the ballot because of this technicality. But now it seems the Libertarian Party is suing (PDF) to keep Romney’s name off.

The suit seeks an order declaring that the Washington State Republican Party is “minor party” for purposes of the 2012 general election and directing the Secretary of State to issue ballots for the November election that do not contain the printed name of any Republican Party nominee.

Duh. Duh. Duh.

LOL. If Romney really is left off the ballot in Washington, expect a big thing made about Democrats manipulating the voting process in right-wing circles (the Libertarians are doing it, but that doesn't matter), and probably a nice sympathy bump for Romney, because he's being 'discriminated' against.

This is just hillarious.

There are stories like this every 4 years. Nothing ever comes of it.

Yeah, Bush technically didn't qualify for the Alabama ballot in 2004 because the Republican Convention was held too late. Needless to say, he was allowed on.

I think the far more likely scenario is that a judge throws out this portion of state law as being confusing and contradictory and orders the State Legislature to rewrite it.

It sure seems like no one considered this part of state law when they went to the current top-2 system. I don't know if its genesis through initiative affects how the WA courts interpret conflicting statute.

This is an idiotic technicality and will never be upheld.

And Bush went on to win Alabama IN A LANDSLIDE.

Your point?

N. Korea one party voting habits must be popular in Washington.

Even if he didn't get on it (which he will), it wouldn't really matter. I guess it'd hurt his national PV total a little.

Who knows? Romney will win Washington? It was a pretty pointless post.

You're certainly right, but I still would like to see Winfield explaining his reasoning :)

What a f--king retarded thread

I am simply stating the obvious that Bush was allowed on the ballot in spite of dumb technacalities and that Bush went on to win the state.

This is not to imply that Romney is going to win Washington.  He isn't.  But he is still going to win well over one million votes there.

Ah yes, the great state of Washington, where Democrats keep holding recounts until they get the results they want, ala Gregoire.

No wonder it's difficult for a Republican to win there.

Is there a Washingtonian reading this thread willing to put this little twat in his place? :)

Yes, and denial of due process, and truncating the right to vote, lacking a reasonable basis, and a few other things, meaning even if that were the law, it would be tossed on Constitutional grounds.

What?

Our Republican SOS actually said that the recount and the final results were completely legitimate...

None of those reasons worked to get the over 200 candidates thrown off the ballot back on the ballot here in the South Carolina primaries here this year.  The case may very well hinge on the meaning of the word "nominate".  The case that caused our primaries to get blown up was intended to get only 1 candidate thrown off the ballot.  It's possible both Obama and Romney get tossed off as the current top-two primary system has no formal mechanism in place for a party to nominate. That would be funny until the Washington legislature revises the law to put them both back on the ballot.  More likely, I'd think the court would accept that under the broad provisions granted for political parties to determine their own rules that so long as the WA GOP endorsed Rossi before the General election, he counts as their nominee or that since he was listed on the general election ballot as a Republican he counts as their nominee.

Also, I suspect the main point of this lawsuit is not to knock Romney off the ballot (not that the Libertarians would be unhappy if it did), but to get a formal ruling on what constitutes a nominee for the purposes of RCW 29A.04.086 in preparation for a second lawsuit over it being too strict in its definition, since the effective floor is far higher than 5% with the top-two primary since a candidate needs far more that 5% of the whole electorate to even make the top-two.

One of the dumbest responses I've ever seen. Nothing says Stalinist dictatorship like Washington state.

BRING          IT          ON!  :)

Since Rossi got greater than 5%, I think they qualified under a reasonable interprentation of the law.

Notice that it would be much harder for a 3rd party to qualify as a major party under the stupid top 2 system?

lol

Would it be upheld if it was being used to keep the Libertarians, the Greens, the Constitution Party, or any other 3rd party off the ballot?

Evidently. I cannot see a legitimate alternative explanation for this "top two" crap passing a referendum.

Obviously if not recounting, Washington would be solidly Republican in preside...

Never mind.

In the case of Washington-state it's because of a desire for zero-party rule.  Washington was one of those states (along with California and Alaska) that had employed the blanket primary, in which a person can choose to vote in the Democratic primary for Governor and the Republican primary for Senator, etc.  That was ruled unconstitutional in the 2000 case California Democratic Party v. Jones.  The nonpartisan blanket primary that was already in use in Louisiana was adopted by referendum.  Effectively, the only race that remains partisan in Washington is the presidential race, which gives another possible way to rule -  the 5% threshold now can be met or set only by the Presidential race, and the Democrats and Republicans have major party status because of the result in that race.

The state legislature/Supreme Court will probably do something about it.  I don't see how Romney really ends up failing to qualify for the ballot in Washington state.