Suit alleges that McCain, Obama knowingly missed filing deadlinesAtlanta, GA - Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's nominee for president, has filed a lawsuit in Texas demanding Senators John McCain and Barack Obama be removed from the ballot after they missed the official filing deadline. "The seriousness of this issue is self-evident," the lawsuit states. "The hubris of the major parties has risen to such a level that they do not believe that the election laws of the State of Texas apply to them." Texas election code §192.031 requires that the "written certification" of the "party's nominees" be delivered "before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before election day." Because neither candidate had been nominated by the official filing deadline, the Barr campaign argues it was impossible for the candidates to file under state law.
"Supreme Court justices should recognize that their responsibility is to apply the law as passed by the Legislature, and the law is clear that the candidates cannot be certified on the ballot if their filings are late," says Drew Shirley, a local attorney for the Barr campaign, who is also a Libertarian candidate for the Texas Supreme Court. A 2006 Texas Supreme Court decision ruled that state laws "does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines."
Orrin Grover, attorney for Bob Barr and Wayne Root, said that he believes that the Texas Secretary of State is bound by Texas law to remove the Republican and Democratic nominees from the November ballot. "Either we have rules and deadlines, or we do not," Grover said. The Chairman of the Texas Libertarian Party, Pat Dixon stated, "Libertarian principles require personal responsibility for your acts and failures. Obama and McCain failed to meet the deadlines. They must follow the law like everyone else."
The petition also alleges that the Democratic Party's late presidential filing falsely claimed under oath that Senator Obama had been nominated hours before the nomination actually occurred. "The facts of the case are not in dispute," says Russell Verney, manager of the Barr campaign. "Republicans and Democrats missed the deadline, but were still allowed on the ballot. Third parties are not allowed on the ballot for missing deadlines, as was the case for our campaign in West Virginia, yet the Texas secretary of state's office believes Republicans and Democrats to be above the law."
Barr will be holding a press conference today at the Texas Supreme Court at 11:00 a.m.Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003.
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Normally, I don't like to see candidates take to the courts to go against other candidates. But this is well deserved because the bias against third party/independent candidates is so disturbing.
Even when they meet the criteria, they are still hindered. And if any such candidate shows a real chance of making an impact under the current rules, then the rules are suddenly changed to further hinder them. Seriously, the election laws may as well just state "You may run as an independant or third party candidate, so long as you don't actually win."
If Bob Barr and the Libertarians had made the same mistake as the two major dopes did here, you can be sure that the Republicratic machine would not hesitates to sue to keep him off the ballot.
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