Minor Party and Independent General Election Discussion

[Tender Branson]

Any idea on how the third parties will do in 2020 compared to 2016?

Ballot-access-wise similar to 2016, I guess the Lib Party and Greens will miss only a few states with high hurdles.

Vote-wise, much worse than 2016.

[Tender Branson]

The LIB party is still on track for all 50 states + DC ballot access.

The Greens will be on the ballot in ca. 40 states + DC and ca. 8 or so with write-in-only access and so far they are only missing the SD ballot completely.

[Tender Branson]

Jorgensen/Cohen (LIB) are now officially on the ballot in 48 states + DC.

They have submitted more than enough signatures in NH (those are being verified).

Only in RI (which has a late filing deadline) they have not submitted signatures yet.

[Tender Branson]

Jorgensen/Cohen (LIB) now on the ballot in 49 states + DC.

Their NH petitions have been verified by town clerks.

Only RI is missing for a clean sweep (deadline: Sept. 4th).

[Tender Branson]

Update with all filing deadlines having passed:

* The Libertarian Jorgensen/Cohen ticket is officially on all 50 state ballots + DC.

* Kanye West is on the ballot in 12 states (incl. the swing states of MN and IA & maybe CO, but this is unlikely to become a swing state).

* The situation for Howie Hawkins (Greens) is more complicated, because there are many lawsuits still ongoing, among them in PA and WI, where rulings should come today or the next few days. Democrats are trying to keep Hawkins/Walker off the ballots there, even though they collected enough valid signatures. But the complaints are that they didn't file all the paperwork properly or in time. This was often ignored in the past when it came to Democrats or Republicans submitting paperwork late. They were still allowed onto the ballot. Currently, it seems as if Hawkins/Walker will get on some 30-35 state ballots + DC and achieve write-in-status in 10 or so others. They only failed completely in a few states, such as SD.

[Tender Branson]

PA's Supreme Court has just ruled that the Democratic challenge against Howie Hawkins (Green) is dismissed:

On September 9, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge J. Andrew Crompton issued an opinion in In Re Nomination Paper of Scroggin, 460 M.D. 2020. The opinion rejects the challenge against Howie Hawkins being on the ballot for President. However, it accepts the challenge to his vice-presidential running mate, Angela Walker.

The basis for the objection had been that the stand-in presidential and vice-presidential candidates had not submitted proper declarations of candidacy. But it turns out the stand-in presidential candidate did submit a declaration of candidacy, although the vice-presidential stand-in did not. The objectors had argued the candidacy statement for the presidential stand-in was flawed, but the judge felt it was sufficient.

https://ballot-access.org/2020/09/09/pennsylvania-commonwealth-court-keeps-howie-hawkins-on-the-ballot/

Howie Hawkins will be on the ballot in PA, but not his vice-presidential candidate Angela Walker.

Hawkins will be on the ballot in the seven most populous states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio. The most populous state in which he is not on the ballot is Georgia.

[Tender Branson]

Apparently, there's a Commonwealth Court in PA and a Supreme Court as well.

After the Commonwealth Court ruling yesterday in favour of Hawkins (Green) appearing on the ballot, the Democrats in PA are now asking the Supreme Court of PA to remove him again.

https://ballot-access.org/2020/09/10/democratic-challengers-to-howie-hawkins-ask-pennsylvania-supreme-court-to-reverse-commonwealth-court/

And in WI, the state Supreme Court has asked town clerks to stop the mailing of postal ballots to voters until they have decided if Hawkins and/or Kanye can appear on the ballot or not.

https://ballot-access.org/2020/09/10/wisconsin-supreme-court-pauses-mailing-of-absentee-ballots-until-it-decides-if-howie-hawkins-and-or-kanye-west-should-be-on-ballot/

This is problematic, because town clerks have already prepared more than 300.000 ballots without their names on for postal distribution in the next days. Many have already been sent to voters !

If the Court rules in favour of them being included, the ballots need to be printed again and sent out again. Clerks then need to make sure the old ballots, some of which might already have been cast by voters, are ruled invalid. Those voters need to vote again.

[Tender Branson]

The ballot access picture for Howie Hawkins (Greens) gets clearer:



The legal battles in WI & MT are resolved (not on the ballot, only write-in access).

PA is still ongoing.

Not sure about the other 6 legal battles on their map.

The Wikipedia map differs in numerous states, mostly write-in or not:

[Tender Branson]

Does anyone know if Hawkins will get write-in access in WI, or is he off the ballot for good ?

[Tender Branson]

Now that Hawkins has been ordered off the WI ballot by the Supreme Court, the clerks can send out the ballots by the September 19 deadline. No change to the ballots is needed. Those that were already sent out are fine too.

Meanwhile, Kanye West has also appealed to the WI Supreme Court, but his case will 100% get dismissed too as the SC has already declared it is too late to change ballots:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/greens-off-wisconsin-ballot-kanye-hanging-on-by-a-thread.html

[Tender Branson]

Hawkins off the ballot in RI:

https://twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1305891990219837440

Didn't the Rhode Island Green Party refuse to nominate anyone?

They did, but Howie still tried to run as an Independent.

And failed.

[Tender Branson]

In PA there is the write in option so keeping parties off the ballot is a waste of time.

Write-in doesn't result in the same number of votes as would be the case with them on the ballot though ...

[Tender Branson]

He’s on the ballot in 29/50 states + DC.

He has write-in access in 17/50.

He’s not on the ballot in 4.

But some lawsuits are still ongoing, at least according to the map on his website ...