Battle for the US senate. Repeat of 2000 fiasco? NJ SC to intervene.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The Sunday NYT is being purposefully vague, methinks.

Forrester was IN the primary race. The difference was that Jim Treffinger dropped out of it. There was a scramble for who would take his spot in the primary ballot (He was the first name in line). It wasn't a case about substituting someone who wasn't running for someone who was, but rather who would take the best spot in the ballot.

[The Mad Monk]

Sounds like the NYT wasn't being the bastion of neutrality a few around here make it out to be...

[MBD]

And in a related story --

Court Asked to Toss McKinney Loss
Sat Oct 5,12:54 AM ET

ATLANTA (AP) - Five voters asked a federal court Friday to overturn the results of an Aug. 20 primary in which Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney ( news, bio, voting record) was defeated, arguing a crossover vote by Republicans violated the rights of black voters.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta and names, among others, Secretary of State Cathy Cox, the DeKalb and Gwinnett county elections supervisors and Denise Majette, the former judge who defeated McKinney.

Georgia law allows voters to cast ballots in the primary of their choice. Before the election, some Republicans called on fellow party members to vote in the Democratic primary to help ensure McKinney's defeat.

The suit asks that the crossover votes be declared unconstitutional and invalid and that McKinney _a five-term congresswoman — be declared the winner of the Democratic primary.

"The issue is that black Democratic voters in the 4th District had their voting rights interfered with and violated," said Atlanta lawyer J.M. Raffauf, who represents the black plaintiffs.

Chris Riggall, a spokesman for the secretary of state, said he did not believe the law prohibited voters from choosing a party in the primary.

[The Mad Monk]

Check this out, other states getting into it:

Link:

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021005-025129-4038r

Calif: NJ ruling a bad election precedent
From the National Desk
Published 10/5/2002 5:04 AM
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SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- California's Secretary of State, Bill Jones -- a Republican -- has filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn the New Jersey court's decision to allow the Democratic Party of New Jersey to replace Sen. Robert Torricelli on the upcoming election's ballot.

"Jones is very concerned about the potential precedents it could set in terms of federal elections in California," said Jones' spokeswoman Beth Miller Friday.

"It worked once spectacularly, they will say. It can work again," the friend-of-the-court brief said.

Michigan, Florida, Washington and South Carolina are among other states "joining the bandwagon," Fox News Channel reported.

According to court papers, the underlying decision has far-reaching implications for the orderly conduct of elections in every state, including California.

Jones, as the chief elections officer in the state of California, said any statewide action like that ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court would make the Nov. 5 election impossible to conduct.

California has 15 million registered voters and absentee voting has begun. Jones said overseas military and civilian voting is long underway. Millions of ballots in tens of thousands of different ballot styles have been printed and shipped to the state's 58 counties.

"Voters have read and been guided by the candidates listed and described in the statutorily mandated statewide voter ballot pamphlet, mailed to more than 11 million households," said court documents.

Although the New Jersey Supreme Court's order has no binding precedential effect on California, or indeed any other state, it nevertheless will trigger a wave of similarly damaging and destructive claims throughout the United States and in California, according to Jones.

"It will, if allowed to stand, encourage candidate substitutions after voter choices have been made, in effect nullifying the will of the voters as expressed at a primary election. It will also encourage other ballot manipulations to gain partisan advantage," the brief said.

"The secretary of state believes this will have an adverse effect on voter participation in California by potentially disenfranchising voters and stimulating voter cynicism that the electoral process is neither fair nor consistent."

The California brief also said that the New Jersey decision must be overturned because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

"Integral to the New Jersey Supreme Court's Order is the requirement that the state Democratic Party, deposit $800,000 to a trust fund that will be used to cover the cost of implementing the newly created statewide tasks involved in switching one candidate for another so close to the general election," court papers said.

Minor political parties exist in both states, but no minor political party is likely to have the financial ability to cover the cost of a late ballot change.

"It gravely harms the election process when, by court order and not legislative deliberation or popular wish, wealthy political parties can manipulate the process while the voters and minor political parties are left out of the process," the court document said.

Douglas Forrester, the Republican challenger to Torricelli, and the New Jersey Republican Party asked for a hearing by the full Supreme Court Thursday and for an immediate stay of any action ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

They want the top court to overturn the New Jersey decision, claiming replacing Torricelli with former Sen. Frank Lautenberg is in direct violation of the United States Constitution -- Article 1, Section 4, the Elections Clause. "It mandates that state legislatures determine the time, manner and place of elections."

Democrats countered that the GOP nominee had no "standing" to enter the case since the case before the New Jersey Supreme Court involved Democrats and state officials and that Forrester could not show that he is being harmed.

Torricelli, first elected to Congress in 1982 and to the Senate in 1996, originally led in the polls but fell behind by more than 10 points after allegations he took gifts from a campaign contributor. He withdrew from the race Monday because, "I not intend, to be the cause of the Democratic Party losing its one-seat majority in the U.S. Senate."

"Basically the New Jersey Supreme Court addressed the issue and we feel it has nothing to do with federal law, so there is no reason for the Supreme Court to pick it up," Tovah Ravitz, spokeswoman for Democratic Senate Campaign Committee told United Press International earlier in the week. "I have a hard time believing the justices will want to keep a candidate who has dropped out of the race on the ballot."

According to Kevin Sheridan, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, if the New Jersey decision is upheld it could create a chaotic precedent.

"We believe in the rule of law and the law in New Jersey said no candidate can drop out of a race 51 days before the election," Sheridan told UPI. "Apparently the Democrats feel they are entitled to a majority in the Senate and will attempt to go around the law to get it -- they play for keeps."

Sheridan said the GOP believed there are probably eight races too close to call at this moment and that the Republicans feel they have four really good chances in Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota and New Jersey.

"It's hypocritical for Tom Daschle to say the New Jersey Senate race needs to be a two-party race because there are several Senate races where the incumbent is unopposed or with token opposition," he said.

The Supreme Court is in recess but the new term begins Monday.


Copyright © 2002 United Press International

[Imran Siddiqui]

The McKinney case is hilarious and without merit. It's an OPEN PRIMARY, and then Dems get mad that Republicans ended up picking who won? LOL!

The reason there are open primaries is because in the general election there were basically only one party that had a chance, like in that district. Basically the Dem who wins the primary wins, because there are hardly any Republicans there.

[Lincoln]

Don't confuse them with anymore facts Imran.

Some people don't realize that much of the south is almost entirely democratic as a matter of tradition more than anything. Open primaries are a matter of fairness to all voters. In my county in Tennessee for example almost all public offices are decided in the primary level. If only the democrats were allowed to vote THEN you would have an unfair situation. Anyway I think that the whole 2 party system is corrupt. George Washington warned against what we are doing now. As I said before, the third party candidates had the most to say at the hearing but they were ignored.

[Roland]

There seems to be a crucial difference to the Florida situation. The Florida SC interpreted the statute in a plausible way (that is my opinion from reading the decision, no matter how much the republicans want to scream), while in this case the court openly put the statute into the trash bin.

Now in Bush v Gore the majority cooked up some bull**** that they essentially pulled out of I think Scalia's ass. But even upon the dissenting opinions' reasoning there's an excellent chance this NJ decision won't hold up.

Is there a chance this will be settled in the courts before the actual election ?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Who knows? It's fast tracked to the US SC.

The Dems claim the statute says nothing about replacing a candidate after the 51st day and the statute simply details replacement of a candidate before the 51st day. The Reps are saying, that silence of the procedure of replacing a candidate after the 51st day means it is illegal to do so. And, doing so would deprive the primary voters of their due process rights.

So, we'll see how this one turns out.

[spartak]

Can someone summarise this thread for me please?

[Roland]

Amercan laws r gay.

[Lincoln]

The simmary is simple:

A law says that you cannot do something after 51 days so the Democrats are changing the meaning of 51.

[Lincoln]

The new meaning is that 51 means whatever the hell they want it to mean depending on how far they are behind in opinion polls.

[Boris Godunov]

The SCOTUS just said it would not hear the case, so Lautenberg will be on the ballot.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The SCOTUS just said it would not hear the case, so Lautenberg will be on the ballot.

Link?

[DinoDoc]

Everything you know is wrong!

I predict that fun times are ahead in election law.