The Connecticut Supreme Court Wednesday heard arguments from the State's two major political parties as to which, Democrat or Republican, should appear on the top line of the ballot in the November election.
The case, brought by the state Republican Party revolves around the number of votes cast in the gubernatorial election of 2010. The relevant statute language is as follows:
Sec. 9-249a. Order of parties on the ballot label. (a) The names of the parties shall be arranged on the machines in the following order:
(1) The party whose candidate for Governor polled the highest number of votes in the last-preceding election;
(2) Other parties who had candidates for Governor in the last-preceding election, in descending order, according to the number of votes polled for each such candidate;
CT. Gen'l Statutes
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, no. Not really. There's a twist.
The complicating factor is that Governor Malloy was elected not by a majority of people voting for him on the Democrat line of the 2010 ballot, but because he was also endorsed by Connecticut's Working Families Party. The 2010 election vote totals:
Republican Tom Foley received 560,874 votes on the Republican ballot line, but Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy won the election with 540,970 votes on the Democratic line and 26,308 votes on the Working Families Party line.
CT News Junkie
See the problem? Foley the Republican got more votes than Malloy the Democrat. But Malloy the Democrat added to Malloy the Working Families candidate got 6404 votes more than Foley the Republican. A squeaker, to be sure.
Now, let's look at the statutory language again. The party whose candidate for Governor polled the highest number of votes in the last-preceding election;So which party is that: The Republicans whose candidate poled higher than that of the other two candidates on the ballot, or the Democrats whose candidate polled more total votes than Foley, albeit with some of those votes cast on another party line?
The Supreme Court doesn't have much time to decide. By State law the Secretary of the State (Denise Merrill, Democrat) has to notify the 169 towns in the State of the ballot order by Saturday, the 15th - the day after tomorrow. By Federal law, ballots must be mailed to armed forces personnel stationed abroad by September 21 - next Friday.
"Significantly, the word 'polled' in [the statute] immediately follows, and refers to, the phrase 'candidate for governor,' not the word 'party,'" the attorney general's brief states. "Given this word order, the determining factor in deciding ballot order is which candidate for governor polled the highest number of votes in the last-preceding election, not which party polled the highest number of votes for governor. ... The Secretary correctly determined that the Democratic Party's candidates should be placed on the top line of the ballot.''
Hartford Courant
But the last word belongs to the Republican Party’s attorney Proloy Das about whether he had exhausted his administrative remedies before bringing the issue of ballot order to court.
“This case is not about politics. It’s about the law"
Riiiiiiight...
Sat Sep 15, 2012 at 6:27 AM PT: At least one newspaper in Connecticut thinks that this whole deal is a waste of time.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy is a Democrat.
Connecticut Republicans need to come to terms with that and knock off the nonsense -- the Connecticut Supreme Court time-wasting nonsense -- about having the governor declared otherwise.
Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/...
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