election follies

[rm]

If you didn't think this campaign season was already orbiting Mars for the sheer level of batshit crazy involved, you will now.

You see, it seems that neither Obama nor McCain met the deadlines they needed to do actually be on the ballot in Texas. And Bob Barr? He's all over this.

More here: http://zarq.livejournal.com/808589.html

Meanwhile, I expect Ron Paul to start crawling all over this mess at any second.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Bob Barr has filed suit, so it's going to get dragged through court anyway I think.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Depending on the precedents and the exact wording of the relevant statute and regs, it may be possible for the court to dispose of this one quickly and easily. If wordsofastory's Texas official is right, this may be a case where all that will need to happen is for the major parties to move for the Texas version of summary judgment/judgment on the pleadings/dismissal for failure to state a claim. Presumably the facts won't be in dispute, so this will be a matter of law. And courts will normally defer to a regulatory department's interpretation of law, unless it's patently unreasonable.

So if an official associated with whatever Texas agency handles elections says the major-party candidates are okay, and that the already-submitted forms were sufficient under its interpretation of Texas law, in general a court will have no trouble dismissing the case.

Of course, that's making a lot of assumptions. But still. It sounds as if this is very likely to go away quietly, for all that it's not likely to be a big problem for the Democrats if it doesn't.