[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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