The Republican Party and Secretary of the State Denise Merrill are headed to the state’s highest court on Sept. 12 to make their case for which party’s candidate should be at the top of this year’s ballot.
The case which was filed by the Republican Party a few days before the Aug. 14 primary has already been transferred to the Appellate Court and last week was moved up the Supreme Court.
There are few facts to argue over in the case, so the two sides agreed on some.
Here’s what they agreed to: The last preceding gubernatorial election took place on Nov. 2, 2010. During that election 560,874 votes were cast for Tom Foley on the Republican Party’s line, 540,970 votes were case for Dan Malloy on the Democratic Party’s line, 26,308 votes were cast for Malloy on the Working Families Party line, and 17,629 votes were cast for Tom Marsh on the Independent Party line.
But that’s where the agreement ends.
Republican legislative leaders maintain that since Foley received the most amount of votes on a single party line Republicans should continue to be on Row A.
Merrill, a Democrat, argued in this letter that Republicans fail to take notice of the difference between party and “party affiliation” when it comes to ballot placement.
“You correctly identify the candidates for governor; however, you do not differentiate between the appearance of a candidate on the ballot by ‘party’ nomination and by nominating petition with a ‘party designation’,” Merrill wrote. “Taking this crucial difference into account results in the conclusion reached by my office in 2011: the Democratic Party is listed on the first row on the ballot followed by the Republican Party.”
The parties to the lawsuit agreed to ask the court two questions.
“1. Is the complaint barred by sovereign immunity? 2. Does General Statutes 9-249a require that the Republican Party’s candidates for office be placed on the first line of the ballots for the November 6, 2012 election?”
Both sides will argued their cases in front of the justices 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12.
