A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

15 September 2016

Partisan attempts to toss candidates from ballot
are dismissed by supreme courts in MT and MN

Ill advised attempts to have candidates booted from the ballot were shot down this week by state supreme courts in Montana and Minnesota.

In Montana, in a lawsuit initiated by MT GOP chairman and State Representative Jeff Essmann, the court ruled 5–1 (PDF) that Libertarian Roger Roots, candidate for Secretary of State, could remain on the ballot despite non-standard compliance with Montana’s campaign finance reporting requirements.

In Minnesota, the court ruled (PDF) that the Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s lawsuit to remove Donald Trump from the ballot was barred by laches (the DFL waited too long to file the lawsuit). The MN GOP had submitted the names of alternate electors for Trump in a non-standard manner.

In both cases, the attempts to have the candidates thrown off the ballot were motivated by crass political considerations.

Montana’s Republicans believe the plurality wins of Jon Tester in 2006, and Tester and Steve Bullock in 2012, resulted from Libertarian candidates drawing votes from Republicans Conrad Burns, Denny Rehberg, and Rick Hill. In the 2013 legislature, the GOP passed a bill putting a top two primary referendum on the 2014 general election ballot. The referendum was barred from the ballot because its title was longer than allowed by state law.

Removing Roots from the ballot might have improved the odds that Republican Corey Stapleton will defeat Democratic SecST candidate Monica Lindeen. If Stapleton can beat Lindeen, and if Republican Elsie Arntzen can defeat Democrat Melissa Romano for Superintendent of Public Instruction, they and Attorney General Tim Fox, who is expected to be re-elected, would form a three to two majority on the state’s lands board.

In Minnesota, Think Progress reported, the DFL may have reckoned that giving Trump the heave-ho would both satisfy the soul and help Democrats down ballot:

Larry Jacobs, chair for political studies at the Humphrey School for Public Affairs and a longtime observer of Minnesota politics, told ThinkProgress that the consequences for Republican incumbents in tight races like Rep. Erik Paulsen (R) and candidates like Stewart Mills, a Republican challenging Rep. Rick Nolan (D) in the Trump-friendly Iron Range area, could be immense.

“It’s going to have a devastating impact down ballot,” Jacobs said. “If you don’t have the top of the ticket it’s like a dagger to the heart, because you’re going to have a substantial numbers of people who will shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Why turn out?’”

The Montana Supreme Court’s decision was consistent with Rich Hasen’s Democracy Canon, the doctrine that ambiguities, vagaries, and harmless technical errors, should be resolved in favor of the voter’s right to cast a ballot and the candidates right to stay on the ballot. Hasen, Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, runs the highly respected Election Law Blog.