PHOENIX — The state’s top election official is asking a judge to toss a bid by his own political party to keep potential competitors off the 2024 ballot.
In new legal filings, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said there is no legal basis for the Arizona Democratic Party to challenge his decision that the No Labels Party meets all legal qualifications to run candidates under its banner. The mere fact Democrats are concerned about competitors doesn’t give them standing to sue, said Fontes’ attorney, Craig Morgan.
Beyond that, the Democrats failed to prove their claims the petitions submitted by No Labels for political party status were legally deficient, Morgan told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper.
The bid by No Labels for ballot status is part of its efforts to put presidential candidates on the ballot.
Its website says it is creating an “insurance plan that would allow a Unity ticket to run in 2024 if the two parties select unreasonably divisive presidential nominees,’’ terms it does not define.
A third-party contender could have implications for Democratic President Joe Biden in 2024, particularly in Arizona. He narrowly edged out Republican Donald Trump by 10,457 votes in 2020.
No Labels now has ballot status in four states including Arizona, said its spokeswoman, Maryanne Martini. She expects that to reach about 20 by the end of the year, with the goal of nationwide status next year.
With Fontes’ certification, No Labels became the fourth party certified for ballot status in Arizona along with Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. The Green Party lost its certification because it did not get at least 5% of the vote in the last gubernatorial election and did not submit enough signatures to retain its ballot status.
Filed enough valid signatures
The Arizona Democratic Party, in trying to keep No Labels candidates off the ballot, cites what it says are a series of legal flaws in the petitions filed with Fontes seeking certification and ballot access. Those include everything from wording discrepancies in the paperwork to allegations that people were attesting to signatures on petitions before they were signed.
There’s also the party’s concession that having No Labels on the ballot “will make it more difficult to elect Democratic Party candidates.’’
Whatever the reason, Morgan said on behalf of Fontes that the Democratic Party has no legal standing to challenge the secretary of state’s decision.
He acknowledged there are laws allowing someone to challenge a specific candidacy for reasons such as the person’s paperwork is incomplete or they are unqualified to run. But there is no similar provision for a third party lawsuit on decisions made by the secretary of state to certify a party for ballot status, Morgan said.
“No Arizona court has held that an established political party or its elector can challenge the secretary’s assessment of a new political party petition,’’ he told the judge.
The law is clear, Morgan said. He said applications for recognized status need to contain a certain number of names of registered voters.
In this case, No Labels submitted petitions with nearly 57,000 signatures. The law then requires a random sample be checked by election officials in each county. That review found 41,663 were valid, exceeding the statutory minimum of 34,127.
Morgan said that ends the matter under the law, which says that if a random sample shows the threshold is met, “the party shall be recognized.’’
“The Legislature could have opted for something different but did not,’’ he said. “And this court is not the place for a party to rewrite the law.’’
Not challenging veracity
Morgan also said there’s no basis for the claim the petitions should be rejected because the circulators signed verification affidavits before all the signatures had been gathered on each.
“There is no such express requirement,’’ he said.
What the law does require, said Morgan, is that the circulators certify this is a petition for a new political party, not that they actually witnessed the people signing the petition.
“Any verification of the ‘integrity’ of a petition is done by public officials,’’ and not the circulators or others, he said. Here, too, Morgan said, if the Arizona Democratic Party wants something different “their remedy for change lies with the Legislature, not with this court.’’
In his own filing, David Rosenbaum, attorney for No Labels, told Cooper the issue is basic, as the Democratic Party is not challenging the veracity of the signatures nor saying the petition was defective in its form.
That leaves unchallenged the fact that more than enough signatures were submitted to form a new party, he said.
What remains is an effort by Democrats “to silence 41,000-plus Arizonans’’ over alleged technical deficiencies “all to spare plaintiffs the inconvenience of competition,” Rosenbaum said.
IRS status
The Democrats have one other key objection.
The No Labels Party is organized under the Internal Revenue Code as a “social welfare’’ organization, said Roy Herrera, attorney for the Democrats. That status means the No Labels Party is not required to disclose its contributors, a requirement that exists in state law for other recognized political parties in Arizona, he said.
Martini said that is justified. “We live in an era where agitators and partisan operatives try to destroy organizations they don’t like by attacking and intimidating their individual supporters,’’ she said.
Rosenbaum, in his legal filing, told Cooper none of that legally matters. He said courts have never held that an organization seeking ballot status without a specific candidate in mind — the current position of No Labels — has to be a political party subject to various disclosure laws.
