[Lnc-business] Alabama: Frankel says 75%; govt says 41%

Wes Benedict wes.benedict at lp.org
Thu Jan 28 10:40:27 EST 2016


Attn Roland Riemers and Kevin Ludlow: This is relevant to the Oklahoma 
discussion in that Paul Frankel has made estimates of validity in 
Oklahoma that certainly seem reasonable, but there's a possibility the 
government will see it differently. Incidentally, the government did not 
seem to screw us on validity in Alabama last time we did Jefferson 
County (in 2013 I think).

See Alabama discussion below.

Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: RE: Libertarian petition review
Date: 	Mon, 25 Jan 2016 18:53:21 -0600
From: 	travellingcircus at gmail.com
To: 	Libertarian Party of Alabama <leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org>, TE 
Finnegan <te.finnegan.libertarian at gmail.com>, William Redpath 
<wredpath2 at yahoo.com>, gary.johnson at lp.org <gary.johnson at lp.org>, Gary 
Johnson <sedition at aol.com>, Oliver Hall <oliverbhall at gmail.com>, 
Nicholas Sarwark <nsarwark at gmail.com>, Ken Moellman 
<ken.moellman at lpky.org>, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org>, Carla 
Howell <carla.howell at lp.org>, Bob Johnston <bob.johnston at lp.org>, Ed 
Marsh <ed.marsh at lp.org>, MarkAxinn <markaxinn at hotmail.com>, LP-State 
Chairs <statechairs at lp.org>, Independent Political Report 
<independent-political-report at googlegroups.com>, iprtwo at googlegroups.com 
<iprtwo at googlegroups.com>, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>



Leigh, I'm not sure who all you meant by "everyone", so I apologize in 
advance if I overdid it. I copied

-The LP national ballot access committee, which I am on
-LP national chair Nick Sarwark
-Several members of LPHQ staff
-LP state chairs, since you and I are both on the LSLA board and we 
could conceivably add this to Wednesday night's phone call agenda if you 
want to do so and ask any state chairs who may have useful advice or 
resources to help with this situation to join us (or provide it via the 
email list),
-My fellow writers at Independent Political Report
-LP national legal counsel, Oliver Hall
-Former LP state chairs Ken Moellman of KY and Mark Axinn of NY, both of 
whom have shown a lot of interest in national ballot access issues over 
the years
-Prospective LSLA board at large member, TE Finnegan


I discussed the situation with Ken Moellman this morning on the phone, 
and he is recommending that Oliver Hall as LP national legal counsel (or 
another attorney if anyone reading is an attorney who would be willing 
to volunteer for this) should send Jeffco elections/Barry Stephenson a 
letter on legal letterhead via certified, registered mail formally 
requesting the elections board to follow the administrative rule you 
mention below and review the previously submitted signatures again in 
light of the evidence you have presented them with. I don't know if the 
LNC will be willing to consider helping to  fund a lawsuit if the 
election board still refuses to do so at that point, or if LPAL has 
money for an attorney to pursue this further if the election board 
continues to refuse to follow the law after being formally notified by 
one of our attorneys, but the LNC did help fund this petition drive, so 
it should at least be considered.

Please also let me know, in my other capacity as a petition contractor, 
whether you still want to keep paying for signatures in Jefferson County 
through yourself and/or the state party, and if so how many and at what 
rate. The paid portion of the Oklahoma LP drive is over and I am 
weighing several options as to where to go next, with this being one of 
them. It is very unlikely to be even remotely close to being competitive 
financially with the other offers I am considering, unless something has 
changed very drastically, but I am willing to consider it anyway because 
it is a loose end from a project I helped create and worked on for 
months last year, and because I would like to attend my own LP state 
convention on Feb 27 and would only be able to do so if  I am in that 
part of the country.

If you feel that paying for additional signatures will not be productive 
at this point, and/or don't have the funds available, that's fine, I 
have plenty of other petitioning offers, and will do what I can to help 
with the legal side as in trying to find legal help and funding regardless.

If anyone else reading is willing and able to help in any way please let 
us know. The short version is that the county is refusing to look at the 
evidence and is claiming our validity is around 41% when our own checks 
show it is more like around 75%. Somewhat longer version below:



On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 4:44 PM, <leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org 
<mailto:leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org>> wrote:

    Paul,

    Will you forward this to everyone.  It's becoming pretty clear to me
    that this will not be solved without a legal battle.

    Thanks

    Leigh

    -------- Original Message --------
    Subject: RE: Libertarian petition review
    Date: 2016-01-25 17:37
    From: leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org <mailto:leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org>
    To: Ed Packard <ed.packard at sos.alabama.gov
    <mailto:ed.packard at sos.alabama.gov>>, stephensonb at jccal.org
    <mailto:stephensonb at jccal.org>

    Ed and Barry,

    These were not "new" petitions. These petitions were submitted in
    June 2015. (The originals of which are on file with the Jefferson
    County Probate Office).  These petitions were verified by our
    volunteers via myinfo.alabamavotes.gov
    <http://myinfo.alabamavotes.gov>. Print outs of the signatures were
    determined to be registered Jefferson County voters are included
    with the copies provided to Alexandra (See attached example).

    I am asking for the Board of Registrars Office to review the voter
    registration data we provided with these copies.  Our reviewed
    information indicates a validity rate of around 70% well above that
    of what was indicated by the Board of Registrars Office.  In
    December 2015, we provided copies of 1,754 reviewed signatures that
    were submitted in June 2015.  Of the 1,754 reviewed signatures,
    1,319 signatures were found to be active Jefferson County voters
    with voter details attached for each signature.  At this point 3,927
    of the submitted signatures have been reviewed via the Secretary of
    State website with registered Jefferson County information found for
    3,026 signatures.  This total is already above the 2,661 signatures
    validated by the Jefferson County Board of Registrars with
    approximately 2,400 signatures yet to be reviewed.

    As I have stated numerous times, these petitions require additional
    review due to the Jefferson County Board of Registrars practice of
    automatically disqualifying signatures due to a missing or
    incomplete birth date even though Alabama Administrative Code, Rule
    820-2-4-.05(3)] states "A signature shall not be deemed invalid for
    lacking any portion of the requested information if the disclosed
    information is sufficient for determining the validity of a
    signature."    (See below for Mr. Stephenson's email dated December
    14, 2015)




    From: "Stephenson, Barry" <stephensonb at jccal.org
    <mailto:stephensonb at jccal.org>>
    Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 15:35:26
    To: leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org
    <mailto:leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org><leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org
    <mailto:leigh.lachine at lpalabama.org>>
    Subject: RE: Libertarian Petition Validation

    Ok we have processed 6,540 signatures.

    Of that amount we have accepted 2,661 and rejected 3,879. We apply
    the same procedure to every petition drive every time. We check for
    the name, address and birth date. If the address is different but
    still in the county we will accept that person providing the
    birthdate matches. In looking over what has been submitted so far,
    there are some names that simply cannot be read but the number one
    reason for rejection is the birthdate not in agreement or the lack
    of a birthdate.




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