From Bob Barr’s website:
Richard Winger’s Ballot Access News reports that Democrats and Republicans have missed the August 26th deadline to place a presidential candidate on the ballot in Texas. According to the Texas Secretary of State website, Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root are the only candidates for president and vice-president that will appear on the ballot in the Lone Star State.
Winger writes:
Section 192.031 of the Texas election code says that political parties must certify their presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the November ballot no later than 70 days before the general election. It says, “A political party is entitled to have the names of its nominees for president and vice-president placed on the ballot if before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential election day, the party’s state chair signs and delivers to the secretary of state a written certification of the name’s of the party’s nominees for president and vice-president.”
[…]
At 2:30 pm Texas time, August 27, Kim Kizer of the Texas Secretary of State’s elections division says neither major party’s certification has been received in the Elections Division. The Executive Office of the Secretary of State refers all questions back to the Elections Division.This year, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party obeyed this law.
In a press release sent from Bob Barr 2008, Russ Verney said, “Unless the state of Texas violates their own election laws, Congressman Barr will be the only presidential candidate on the ballot,” adding that “Texas law makes no exceptions for missing deadlines.”
We’ll be paying attention to this situation.
The source referenced is Ballot Access News Richard Winger’s online resource for all things election. His final paragraph in the post pretty much sums up my opinion on the subject:
In 1988, the Democratic and Republican Parties missed a similar Indiana deadline. Lenora Fulani sued the State Election Board to force the Board to enforce the deadline. The 7th circuit ruled that Fulani did have standing to file such a lawsuit. Fulani v Hogsett, 917 F 2d 1028 (1990). However, the 7th circuit also said that Fulani waited too long to file her lawsuit. The implication is that if she had filed the lawsuit promptly, it would have been successful; or, more likely, the Indiana deadline for the major parties to certify their nominees might have been held unconstitutional. Fulani in 1988 was the only ballot-listed presidential candidate other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. This year, the Texas Libertarian Party and Bob Barr are the only ballot-listed presidential candidates on the Texas ballot, so the Texas Libertarian Party could, if it wished, bring a lawsuit. However, the result of the lawsuit would probably be to get the deadline declared unconstitutional; no court would order that Obama and McCain be kept off the ballot.
In the end, Obama and McCain will appear on the Texas ballot. Laws don’t apply to major parties and their candidates. On the other hand, McCain is currently suing to have Barr removed from a ballot in another state. Are we taking bets on the outcome there?
This is simply another lesson on who holds the power in this country. Get ready for the next 4 years.
Additional. The website has already been updated to include the two major party candidates.
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/
And that, after the deadline has passed. I think we need to ask the question, did they get in before the deadline, and the website just wasn’t updated; or after it, and the law was violated? Based on Wingers research, it looks like the answer is ‘after’.
The latest from BobBarr2008.com:
“The law is clear, and it was clearly not followed,” says Verney. “The Texas Supreme Court was emphatic when it stated that the law ‘does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines . . .’ Senators Obama and McCain did not file by the deadline; therefore, Texas should abide by the laws it created. No political party or candidate is above the law.”
You can read campaign filings from Obama and McCain here and a letter from Russ Verney to the Texas Secretary of State here.
they went against it!