All of the Republican candidates are under challenge by other Republican candidates in Illinois according to an article posted at the Publius Forum web site. The article says that all of the challenges are valid and that in the light of previous court rulings, none of the Republican candidates for President can appear on the primary ballot. Oh, and there is a challenge to Obama too.
“This is the clearest example yet that Illinois Election law is in dire need of urgent reform and that this is even plausible should be an embarrassment to the People of Illinois who deserve better,” said Bambenek.
ROFL
The challenges against all the GOP candidates in Illinois have now been dropped–even against the Santorum delegates that clearly didn’t have enough signatures to quqalify.
Illinois is kinda wierd in the Presidential Primary. Each candidates name is on the ballot in a ‘beauty contest’, then below you have to select the individual delegates to the convention that you want. (Each delegate’s name along with the candidate thay support is listed along with a space to vote for each one.) Also some of the candidats have incomplete delegate slates. You have to run a seperate slate in each Congressional Disrict. Santorum, Perry and Roemer all have incomplete slates. Roemer only appears in one CD, and Perry has only 1 delegate listed statewide. Santorum has I bleive 15 out of 18 CD’s with slates.
Sometimes the results can be interesting. Four years ago, John McCain handily won the beauty contest portion, although in the 14th Congressional District former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was elected delegate even thoughhe was pledged to Romney.
That being said, the ballot challenge to Obama is a farce. If it is upheld, he will not be in the beauty contest portion of the primary, but all the delegate candidates who support him and aren’t challenged will still be elected–in the end making totally meaningless the challenge outside of political noise.
The challenge comes out of the Cook county GOP which is a joke and a half. (Illinois bluesness is partly because the GOP is so dysfunctional) In addition Sharon Meroni (sp) She challenged the status of half dozen or so legislative candidats as well. Those challenges were pretty much dismissed out of hand as I expect the ones to Obama will be too.
BTW Buddy Roemer wasn’t challenged, so he would have still been there.
train111
To quick writing. The ballot challenge to Obama only affects the beauty contest portion of the primary–not the other way around as I wrote.
train111
[I typed this up and the web ate it … trying again…]
All of the stories about the GOP candidates being challenged are about 2 weeks old. It seems they were all filed against each other. Some of the candidates are even trying to pick off each other party delegates!
http://www.centralillinoisnewscenter.com/news/local/GOP-Candidates-Challening-Each-Other-on-Illinois-Ballot-137542563.html
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/9975702-452/perry-paul-could-be-knocked-off-illinois-ballot.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-17/news/ct-met-illinois-presidential-ballot-challenge-20120117_1_delegate-candidates-ballot-challenges-primary-ballot
train11 above says these are all dismissed, but I can’t find a source confirming that.
You can follow the history of Steve Boulton’s (Defend the Vote) signature anti-drive at:
http://www.chicagogop.com/
Read this post! Recall his pious, nonpartisan preening here, and contrast that with the tone of his note from 1/26/12, detailing how his effort failed.
http://chicagogop.com/home/the-obama-challenge-rats.html
Not quite fair and balanced.
Odd how the filing of a challenge gets far more press than the disposition of the challenge. 😉
Meroni, Jackson, and Freeman (any others?) filed challenges against Obama. There was a hearing on the 24th, but I don’t know which filings it was for, or what transpired. Looking forward tothe fails.
This announcement of the hearing carries with it some awesome comments!
http://obamaballotchallenge.com/attend-a-obama-ballot-challenge-hearing-tomorrow-morning-in-illinois
The Illinois State Board of Elections website http://www.elections.il.gov/ has the GOP challenges as ‘withdrawn’ and the Obama challenges still pending.
Good luck navigating the site however. It is almost as mucked up as Illinois’ election laws.
train111
Mike :
thanks for the ROAR
btw, kemp apparently didn’t show up when he was “required” to do so
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79683411/2012-01-19-Swensson-Subpoena-Duces-Tecum-to-SOS
arpaio said the subpoena was “not valid” and would place an “undue burden” on HIM (imagine obama)
clinton v jones addresses a president being required to show up –
Second, our decision rejecting the immunity claim and allowing the case to proceed does not require us to confront the question whether a court may compel the attendance of the President at any specific time or place. We assume that the testimony of the President, both for discovery and for use at trial, may be taken at the White House at a time that will accommodate his busy schedule, and that, if a trial is held, there would be no necessity for the President to attend in person, though he could elect to do so. [14]
14 Although Presidents have responded to written interrogatories, given depositions, and provided videotaped trial testimony, see infra, at 704705, no sitting President has ever testified, or been ordered to testify, in open court.
The entire post is a walking, talking argument in favor of censorship. Think of the electrons that suffered as that crappola went down the wire!
I thought this blog had a policy against SPAM.
There is nothing different in this latest post by “Mike” than the last bazillion times he cr@pped it all over here. Not even worth responding to. Just clutters the blog.
Now it makes sense.
some advice for mike:
the birther I know had his teen age daughter move in with grandparents to get away from his idiocy, his wife finally left him as well. He blames all this on Obama. mike just may be the birther I know or certainly a relative. poor guy
tea party fave alan west is NOT interested in the birther nonsense tho taitz is attempting to draft him:
Taitz wrote a post on her blog linking to an article on West’s comments and asking him to be a congressional surrogate for the birther movement.
“CONTACT ALAN WEST [sic], ASK HIM TO JOIN AS A PLAINTIFF, BRING ELIGIBILITY BEFORE CONGRESS. TALK IS CHEAP, ACTIONS MATTER,” she wrote in her signature all-caps style.
While West is certainly well-known for his bombastic rhetoric, he has weighed in on the birther issue before, telling a skeptical constituent at a town hall meeting last year that he should focus on Obama’s policies, not his birthplace. Later asked about his own opinions on the matter, West said he wasn’t subscribing to the conspiracy theories.
“He is a citizen. He’s the president. I mean, that’s all I know. I am concerned about his policies,” West said.
No kidding, Train!
I found this list of objections filed:
http://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionInformation/LatestObjections.aspx?id=32
If you click on any of them, you get something like:
GENERAL PRIMARY – 3/20/2012
RUNYON V PAUL
1/13/2012 4:57 PM
WITHDRAWN
Objectors Address
RUNYON, JAMES A. 11011 EAST 700 AVENUE
ROBINSON, IL 62454
Name Office/Party Status
PAUL, RON
8000 FORBES PLACE, SUITE 200
SPRINGFIELD, VA 22151 PRESIDENT
REPUBLICAN Active
1/24/2012 11:00 AM
So….it was withdrawn on the 13th but active on the 24th? What a mess.
Steve Boulton’s challenge to Obama signatures in Illinois goes down in flames:
http://chicagogop.com/home/the-obama-challenge-rats.html
Note the decidedly partisan tone from this self-proclaimed “altruistic” elections crusader. 😉
[sorry for reposting this note, got buried by a MikeDump]
“ask the appropriate officials in your state to create a law that will grant your state the same rights than the state of Georgia has to fully check a candidate BEFORE he is put on the ballot for any elections, in particular for the coming election for the position of President of the USA”
Wow. State Reps must be scrambling.
Who would have expected a boneheaded and unrealistic suggestion from a birther?
“ask the appropriate officials in your state to create a law that will grant your state the same rights than the state of Georgia has to fully check a candidate BEFORE he is put on the ballot for any elections, in particular for the coming election for the position of President of the USA”
GEORGIA spoke on the subject
The GEORGIA Secretary of State is NOT PERMITTED to remove President Obama from the Democratic Presidential Preference Primary ballot under Terry v. Handel, 08cv158774S.
Rhonda M. Brown
Operations Coordinator
SECRETARY OF STATE Elections Division
Recently, a lawsuit was filed claiming that Mr. Obama is not qualified to run for President and should not appear on Georgia’s ballot.
See Terry v. Handel, In the Superior Court of Fulton County, State of Georgia, Civil Action File No. 2008CV158774.
On October 24, 2008, the Court entered an Order recognizing that in Georgia, as elsewhere in the United States, voters cast their ballots for “presidential electors,” rather than directly for a candidate, when voting for the office of President of the United States.
See, e.g., U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 3; O.C.G.A. § 21-2-172.
Because of this, the Secretary of State of Georgia DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO REFUSE to allow someone to be listed as a candidate for President of the United States when such individual has been properly nominated by a political party.
See O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-172 to 21-2-200.
Rather, Georgia law imposes duties simply for the examination of presidential electors. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-172.
The political parties’ candidates for President of the United States are typically determined through a political party’s convention.
O.C.G.A. § 21-2-191 to 21-2-200.
Therefore, any concerns you may have regarding the qualifications of Mr. Obama to remain on Georgia’s ballot as a candidate for President of the United States should be directed to the Democratic National Party.
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/s…
Didn’t Steve promise to come back here after his case to crow about it??
LOL! Like all of them, they talk tough and then slink away and disappear after they get smacked down.
It really would be very interesting to talk about the finepoints of the election code, their methods of analysis, etc., but I don’t see that happening.
How about the excessive use of ALL CAPS?
Doc, I don’t ask this lightly- but can you put Mike into moderation? it’s just Birther spam.
I would have to agree. It has been spammed, word for word, over the internet around 90 times in the last week (as of yesterday morning, I think).
You know what is really funny? Steve Boulton who was one of the petitioners on the unsuccessful challenge of Barack Obama in Illinois was himself challenged as a candidate for Republican Party Ward Committeeman for the 32nd Ward of the City of Chicago. His challenger was successful. Steve needed 75 valid signatures. He turned in 150 but only 58 were found valid. http://www.thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2998&p=336511&hilit=+boulton+party#p336511
LOL! I saw this note while headed down’s to Boulton’s posts, but didn’t look into it … thanks for providing the punchline, RC! 😀
http://www.chicagogop.com/home/there-is-an-aroma-at-the-chicago-board-of-election-commissioners.html