SCOTUS Looking Into Hawaii Election Law
After years of legal wrangling in lower courts, a case challenging Hawaii’s ballot access rules could end up in front of the United States Supreme Court.
In 2004, longtime consumer advocate and occasional independent presidential hopeful sued the state when he was told he wouldn’t be on the ballot because he didn’t have enough signatures.
Under , non-party presidential candidates need to submit a petition with enough signatures to represent 1 percent of the votes cast in the previous presidential election. In 2000, more than for president in Hawaii, so Nader needed more than 3,600 names.
In in September 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Hawaii’s burden for ballot access is low. They did acknowledge, though, that the threshold is high when compared with the other way for presidential candidates to get on the ballot.
Under , a new party can place its preferred candidates on the ballot if it submits a petition with enough signatures to equal one-tenth of 1 percent of the total registered voters from the previous general election.
There were [pdf], so a new party — even one called the “Nader Party” — would have needed only 677 signatures to put a candidate on the ballot.
The Appeals Court still rejected the argument. It said the policy for qualifying parties applies for state offices as well as the presidential race, so it would be unfair to compare the two and determine that the entire “election scheme” is burdensome.
In November, Nader’s attorney asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. On Jan. 31, the court requested a response from the state, .
“When the U.S. Supreme Court asks for a response from the side that had won the case in the lower court, that is a sign that the Court is thinking that it might possibly take the case,” said Richard Winger in a post at the advocacy website .
Winger told Civil Beat that the case, if heard by the Supreme Court, would mark the first time the court has tested the constitutionality of a ballot access law since 2001. Winger said he’s concerned the state might respond to the suit by raising the threshold for qualifying parties, which would not only ruin the case but also make it harder to access Hawaii’s ballot.
Messages left for attorneys for both Nader and the Hawaii Office of Elections were not returned.
