Lawsuit seeking party ID for supervisors gets court hearing

The lawsuit I noted a couple of weeks ago seeking an injunction to require the State Board of Elections to give candidates for county boards of supervisors the right to have their party affiliations noted on the ballot was heard in federal court today.

Attorney General Mark Herring’s office argued that the plaintiff, Bob Marcellus, filed his lawsuit far too late and, if an injunction was granted, would place a huge burden on counties. Moreover, the AG argued Marcellus should have known state law didn’t allow for supervisor candidates to have party ID on the ballot. On the matter of whether voters are entitled to that extra bit of information to avoid potential confusion at the polls, the AG demurred.

Marcellus, though his lawyer, Pat McSweeney, says there is still plenty of time for the state to order a ballot change as the SBE’s deadline for changes is September 11th (in case a candidate drops out, dies, etc). The statutory deadline for printing ballots, as noted by the judge, is September 18th.

McSweeney also argued that the “ignorance of the law” charge doesn’t hold because the SBE’s own website — which Marcellus used for confirmation he was properly listed as a general election candidate — shows him listed with his party affiliation.

A more technical issue is the spacing available on county ballots for names and party ID. The state says there are only 25 spaces for this information, and produced a ballot from Fairfax county, which, interestingly enough, has a candidate whose name takes up 29 spaces.

So yeah, there’s room, and there’s time. The issue boils down to the state just not having a very good, let alone compelling, reason to keep party ID out of the supervisor races. Unless it’s to sow seeds of doubt and confusion among voters.

Whether the judge agrees this rises to the level of granting an injunction is difficult to say. The case will eventually go to trial, but the judge will rule on the injunction request before the September 11th SBE deadline.

And yes — the General Assembly could clear all of this up with legislation. But it has been hostile to the idea for some time.