A three-member panel voted today to allow Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson to be on the Iowa ballot, but supporters of Republican Mitt Romney are expected to take their case to court.
UPDATE: Added more background below on why the Iowa Secretary of State’s office rejected the Libertarians’ first set of petitions to place Johnson on the ballot.
SECOND UPDATE: A Polk County district court will resolve this dispute.
Johnson is a former governor of New Mexico who ran for president as a Republican last year. He received little attention from political journalists or GOP debate organizers. Having secured the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president in May, Johnson is expected to be on the ballot in most if not all of the 50 states. However, Republican activists in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and now Iowa are seeking to keep Johnson off the general election ballot.
On August 24, two Iowa voters filed a challenge to Johnson’s candidacy with the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. David Pitt of the Associated Press reported that the voters were Gloria Mazza of Clive and Dean Montgomery of Urbandale. Jay Kramer, the Romney campaign’s “election day operations director in Iowa,” signed the challenge as a witness, according to Pitt’s report. The Gary Johnson Grassroots Blog posted a statement released by Johnson’s presidential campaign about the Iowa challenge. Excerpt:
Jay Kramer, a Mitt Romney campaign operative from Washington D.C., filed a challenge on Friday to keep Libertarian candidate for President, Gary Johnson, from appearing on the ballot in November. The Romney campaign hired the largest law firm in Iowa, the Des Moines based, Nyemaster Goode PC, for the challenge, which will be heard by Iowa Secretary of State Matt Shultz [sic] on Monday at 3 pm.
“This is clearly a set up,” said the Johnson campaign’s attorney, Alicia Dearn. “Romney can’t beat Johnson on the debate stage, so he has resorted to cronyism. The Libertarian Party had two thousand petition signatures and should have been on the ballot without challenge, as they have always done in the past. But Republican Shultz [sic] [Iowa Secretary of State] – in violation of longstanding Iowa law – rejected the petition and required the Johnson campaign to caucus at the state fair. There, the Romney campaign surveilled the Johnson campaign’s activities for the sole purpose of bringing this eleventh-hour challenge,” Dearn said.
The Romney campaign’s challenge was filed Friday afternoon and set for a hearing on Monday afternoon. The 106-page challenge includes pictures of Johnson supporters asking fair-goers to support having Gov. Johnson and the Libertarian Party offered as a choice on the ballot.
The challenge claims that the state fair signatures should be thrown out because the signers are not Libertarians. “The challenge is legally frivolous,” asserts Dearn. “You don’t have to be a registered Libertarian to want a third choice on the ballot. Iowans deserve to choose for themselves who to vote for, which is why Gov. Johnson should be on the ballot and allowed to debate Romney and President Obama. Democracy suffers when voices are silenced.”
I am seeking comment from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office on why Johnson’s signature petition was rejected.
Pitt’s Associated Press report on the challenge differs from how Dearn characterizes the objection to signatures gathered at the Iowa State Fair.
Libertarians hope to get on the Iowa ballot using a method that allows third-party candidates to hold a state convention, which must be attended by at least 250 eligible voters. The party said it held its convention on Aug. 15 at the Iowa State Fair, but challenge documents said a convention wasn’t held.
Kramer said he attended the fair Aug. 15 and saw someone with a “Gary Johnson for President” shirt getting signatures on a document. Kramer said there was nothing resembling a party convention or caucus.
As it happens, I spent a few hours at the fair on August 15. I didn’t see anything about a Libertarian Party convention on the schedule of events, nor was there any unused building on the fairgrounds (that I know of) which could have accommodated a convention of 250 people that day. I didn’t see anyone collecting signatures for Gary Johnson, but I did notice Johnson for President advertisements hanging on the bicycle-drawn carriages that give people rides between cars parked on city streets and the fairgrounds.
Three people serve on Iowa’s panel that handles ballot access questions: Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Attorney General Tom Miller, and Warren Jenkins, the chief deputy for Republican Auditor David Vaudt. The panel met to discuss this challenge on Monday and scheduled a second meeting for this morning. Chad Olsen, communications director for Schultz, told me by telephone that the panel unanimously decided to reject the challenge to Johnson’s listing on the Iowa ballot. He said an official statement on the decision will be forthcoming. I will update that post with the statement when I have it.
According to an Associated Press report today, the panel “said Iowa’s law on holding conventions to get on the ballot is vague and they opted to err on the side of open ballot access. […] The panel says it will ask lawmakers to better define the convention process in state law.”
Defining what constitutes a convention would be a good idea. As things stand, I can’t see how collecting 250 signatures on petitions qualifies as holding a convention attended by at least 250 voters. I support third-party candidate access to the ballot as a general rule, but the Romney backers seem to have legitimate grounds to object to Johnson’s listing in this case. I don’t know enough about Schultz’s earlier decision to reject Johnson’s petition to say whether it was justified.
Olsen told me by telephone that the dispute is probably “not over,” because the people who filed the challenge may file for a court injunction to keep Johnson off the ballot.
The Iowa tradition is to be liberal in allowing ballot access. In March, Miller, Schultz, and Jenkins agreed to let State Senator Joe Seng on the Democratic primary ballot in Iowa’s second Congressional district, despite problems with his signature petitions.
UPDATE: Speaking by telephone, Olsen provided more background on this story.
Presidential candidates seeking access to the general election ballot need at least 1,500 signatures. The Libertarian Party met that requirement, but activists started collecting signatures in Iowa before the party’s national convention nominated Johnson for president and James Gray for vice president. Consequently, some of the signature pages listed different Libertarian candidates for president and vice president.
Iowa law allows signatures to be considered valid in that situation only if the former candidates have signed affidavits stating that they agree to allow so-and-so to be nominated in their place. However, with only a few days remaining before the August 17 deadline for submitting paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office, Johnson’s campaign was unable to obtain signed affidavits from the previous Libertarian candidates. (Olsen said his understanding was that those candidates were vacationing outside the country.)
According to Olsen, a staffer in the Secretary of State’s Office informed Johnson’s campaign representatives that two options remained to secure ballot access. Either the Libertarians could collect 1,500 signatures on petitions nominating Johnson for president and Gray for vice president, or the Libertarians could hold a convention involving at least 250 delegates representing at least 25 Iowa counties. Johnson’s campaign took the second option and collected signatures at the Iowa State Fair on August 15. The fair would be an ideal place to conduct that operation, because Iowans from so many counties are gathered in one small area.
In other words, Romney’s people wouldn’t have any case to make if 1) the Libertarians hadn’t jumped the gun by collecting signatures before their party had nominated its candidates; or 2) the Libertarians had managed to secure affidavits from the previous candidates; or 3) the Libertarians had collected 1,500 signatures for Johnson during those last few days before the August 17 deadline.
I asked Olsen how collecting signatures at the Iowa State Fair could possibly be considered a “convention.” Even though state law doesn’t define a convention, clearly it means something other than circulating petitions on clip boards. Otherwise the law would state that candidates have the option of collecting signatures from 250 people representing at least 25 counties.
Olsen said that in 2008, a socialist ticket for president and vice president gained ballot access in Iowa by holding a similar “convention” in Iowa City, setting up tables and collecting signatures from at least 250 Iowans. (All together now: they don’t call it the People’s Republic of Johnson County for nothing!) Johnson’s campaign cited that precedent in its response to the challenge Mazza and Montgomery filed.
Two wrongs don’t make a right in my opinion, but I am not a specialist in election law. If the panel of Miller, Schultz, and Jenkins had decided against Johnson, the Libertarian Party would certainly have filed a court appeal, citing the disparity between treatment of Johnson and the socialist candidate from the last presidential election.
I will continue to update this post as needed. I don’t see Johnson winning a lot of votes in Iowa (outside of the Fairfield area, which has a Libertarian presence). Even if Johnson were not on the ballot, disgruntled Ron Paul supporters could vote for the Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, or write in Paul’s name.
SECOND UPDATE: Bleeding Heartland user hhartus provided more background in this comment below. Notably, the Secretary of State’s website (which is supposed to provide information for candidates) lacked any mention of the requirement regarding affidavits from candidates who have been replaced.
THIRD UPDATE: Here are some excerpts from the six-page official opinion signed by Miller, Schultz, and Jenkins.
At the Iowa State Fair, a number of Libertarian Party supporters gathered. These supporters, at least some of whom were wearing Gary Johnson for President t-shirts, approached fairgoers and attempted to obtain signatures on forms provided by the Iowa Secretary of State. The top of each form states “List of Delegates in Attendance at a Non-Party Political Organization Convention.” The header over the signature line states “Name of delegate.” Through this process, the Libertarian Party of Iowa obtained 449 signatures. […]
The Objectors filed Declarations from eleven individuals who signed the “List of Delegates” at the Fairgrounds on August 15. These represent approximately 2% of the total number of signatures submitted. Each of the eleven state that he or she did not attend any convention or caucus of the Libertarian Party on that date. […]
Previously, panels of the Auditor of State, Attorney General, and Secretary of State have found that “statutes governing nomination procedures should be liberally construed to the benefit of the electors in order to provide every lawful opportunity for the electors to express their preference at the ballot box.” […]
The objectors did not challenge the validity of any of the individual signatures other than the eleven affiants who disavow their attendance at any Libertarian caucus or convention. The Objectors argued that the eleven Declarants represented 2% of the total signatures and from there the Panel should infer that “most or all” of the remaining signatories were not delegates. The Panel is unwilling to make that extrapolation from such a small sample. The Libertarian Party affirmatively called supporters to attend their caucus at the Fairgrounds. It is reasonable to asume that a number of the signatures on the List of Delegates were at the Fairgrounds in response to the Party’s outreach. Even if the Panel were to strike the eleven signatures from the roll, there would remain well more than the necessary 250 delegates to qualify the Certificate of Nomination.
The Libertarian supporters communicated to the fairgoers that they were there as part of a process to certify or nominate Gary Johnson for the Libertarian Party candidate for president. Even the eleven Declarations submitted by the Objectors concede that each was approached about a nominating convention for the Libertarian candidate to gain access to the ballot.
In addition, the Objectors filed four Declarations from persons who were present at the Fairgrounds but did not sign the Libertarian Party delegation papers. Each Declarant states that he did not observe a political caucus while at the Fairgrounds. One Declarant, Jay Kramer, states that he did not witness any Libertarian Party gathering at 10:00 a.m. at the Fairgrounds on August 15. He did witness one person with a clipboard talking to fairgoers that afternoon. The Panel is not persuaded. The Fairgrounds are a large space, and the fact that Mr. Kramer did not see what he would consider a Libertarian Party caucus does not mean that a caucus was not held. […]
The Panel would welcome further clarity from the legislature regarding what process should be followed when holding a nonparty convention or caucus. Absent that guidance, the Panel is unwilling to create additional requirements that would result in denying the Libertarian Party access to the presidential ballot in this instance.
6 Comments
isn't he the legalize pot
candidate? Why would he be expected to draw from Romney voters disproportionately?
albert Wed 29 Aug 4:29 PM
I mean,
from issues:
That sounds like a big winner with Iowa Republicans.
albert Wed 29 Aug 4:37 PM
Re: ballot line
The Libertarians initially collected the required number of signatures via nomination papers (petitions), the usual way independent and third parties get their candidates on the ballot. The petitions were rejected because they had filed substitution paperwork – replacing their stand ins with the actual national nomineess – lacking affidavits from the stand-ins. Affidavits from the stand-ins as well as the eventual nominees are required. With the stand-ins then being unreachable, the SoS apparently recommended they do the convention method.
While this “outdoor convention” may seem strange to those not familiar with the process, the hearing panel obvusoy among them, it has been considered acceptable in both states where it can be used (Iowa and Washington state). In 2008, the SPUSA got their presidential ballot line in Iowa the same way the Libertarians did this year.
As someone who has coordinated at least four statewide third party ballot drives and is familiar with what actually goes into it, I can tell you a more conventional type of convention, which would mean getting 250 party members from at least 25 states in one location at the same time, is virtually impossible. I don’t know when that process was adopted, but it’s no longer relevant or usable (ifi it ever was) any way other than the way in which the Libertarians and SPUSA have done it. If the legislature is going to more clearly define “convention,” in all fairness they either need to continue to allow th “outdoor convention,” or come up with an actually achievable process, unless they want Iowa to join the pantheon of states that use vicious and unethical means to block ballot access. But I’m hoping we won’t be heading in the direction of Illinois or Pennsylvania.
So why didn’t the Libertarians know abut the affidavits (someone is going to ask)? Rules for substitution paperwork were nowhere to be found on the SoS site, most notably not in the candidate guide. I had tried to find it myself, and ended up calling the SoS office for the information for the Green Party’s ballot line. I followed the instructions to the letter, only to be told the day after our petitions were overnighted and two days before the deadline, that the substitution paperwork was lacking one detail, which an assistant apparently noted after the phone call but no one bothered to let me know about…. Necessitating an emergency trip to DMS the day after our petitions were filed, due to a subjective interpretation of how long 24 hours actually is/are.
Although the deputy SoS repeatedly insisted the information was on their website – it wasn’t. The assistant finally acknowledge it. In searching through the site, I happened to check the audutor’s page and through a series of links through the unofficial version of the Iowa Code, found mention of substation paperwork, but not the actual citation relevant to rue situation: an oddly written sentence attached to a paragraph duplicated elsewhere without that sentence.
What is clear on the site are several disclaimers that the SoS office and website are not responsible for having accurate information, and the Iowa Code is the authoritative source. And not necessarily the Iowa Code site you’re reading, but the real Iowa Code. God only knows where that’s is, but it’s apparently not on any website (including the general assembly’s).
This lack of information was almost certainly an oversight, not due to ill intent, but the way it affected the Libertarian ballot petition drive should have been unacceptable.
hhartus Wed 29 Aug 9:50 PM
thank you for your comment
It is unacceptable for the SoS website not to provide 100 percent accurate information to candidates on the ballot access requirements. Fixing that should be a high priority before the next election cycle. I agree with you, omitting that information was probably an oversight, because this is an unusual circumstance, but still, candidates need to know exactly what is required before they submit their paperwork.
I don’t know the right way to define “convention,” but I think it needs to mean something other than setting up a few tables outdoors with your candidate petitions. Otherwise why even set the signature requirement at 1,500? Everyone can just have a few organizers spend a day walking around with clip boards and say they got 250 signatures at a “convention.”
desmoinesdem Wed 29 Aug 10:20 PM
More/Better Ballot Access
Thanks for your response, and thank you for covering this in Bleeding Heartland. Ballot access, petitioning and third party/independent efforts are not well known, but some of this information is relevant to all.
IMO, the problem is the antiquated or odd-tense language vs actual practice vs how realistically achievable some of ese requirements may be.
It’s actually not that easy to do either the regular petitoning or the convention. With either, just setting up a table and trying to get signers to stop by won’t result in enough signatures. The convention actually requires 250 individuals from at least #25 counties,# and each signs two documents. Think for a moment – where in Iowa are you going to come p with that population? 250 people maybe; 25 counties, very unlikely in one day’s time in one location (state fair excepted). By comparison, the best petition spots I’ve found might net you ~40 signatures/hr at best, but you’ll have covered the area, no more signers are available. In a place like a public area,, farmers’s market or music event, you may get 2-4 counites represented. Over time, you could get about 12-15 in a higher populated area. In general, a petitionr gets anywhere from 5 to 20 an hour.
Also, the language on both the nomination papers (petitions) and the convention documents indicates that signers support a particular candidate, I.e., are nominating that person. But I know of no one who has ever worked at petitioning to have understood this to mean that a signer actually intends to support or vote for that candidate, join the party, etc. We got a few questions about this, and always made clear that a signature means that the signer supports a candidate’s right to be on the ballot.
The papers signed at a convention are considered in the same light, but each individual must sign two documents. Finding 250 individuals from 25 counties in a single day, and who will take the time to do this, is not possible in most places – except at the state fair and maybe some event like the 80/35 music festival.
Miller nor Vaudt’s assistant don’t really know anything about ballot access here or anywhere else; and have little concept of what should be considered reasonable for third party/independent runs. If there is an attempt to clarify this, I’d like to see: a modification of the petitioning process, lowering the required number of petition signatures; develop procedures for a convention (i.e., an actual meeting of party members) or caucus that could actually be done in this physical universe.
Finally, regarding the information not on the SoS website: stand-ins are often used for third party presidential runs because petitoning usually has to start before the national convention. It’s not uncommon to see the vice-presidential stand in remain on an Iowa ballot, but it’s also a routine process to substitute. The deputy SoS repeatedly state the info w on their site, so they were obviously aware of it!
hhartus Thu 30 Aug 1:46 PM
more
http://www.scribd.com/shadrack…
nativeiowan Thu 30 Aug 9:08 PM