Representative
John Conyers Jr., a Detroit Democrat who was first elected in 1964, had found
his re-election prospects at risk when his campaign failed to collect the
required 1,000 valid signatures.
At
least two workers collecting signatures were not properly registered to vote,
or listed a wrong registration address, a violation of Michigan State Law
leaving Conyers over 400 signatures
short and the state election officials declared him ineligible to have his name
on the ballot.
Judge
Matthew F. Leitman of Federal Court ruled that requiring 1,000 valid signatures
to get John Conyers name on the ballot in Michigan for his incumbent
Congressional seat violated his First Amendment rights.
“They
believed they were in compliance with the statute,” the judge wrote. Judge Leitman added that the First Amendment
rights of Mr. Conyers and the signature collectors working for his campaign
were “severely burdened” under the current law.
Mr.
Conyers’s lawyers mounted a challenge in federal court, saying Wednesday that
the judge should throw out a state law requiring petition collectors to be
registered to vote, arguing that the law violated the First Amendment. They
cited an appeals court decision from 2008, Nader v. Blackwell, that struck down
a similar law in Ohio.
Experts
in election law said Judge Leitman’s favorable ruling was not surprising
considering the case’s similarities to Nader v. Blackwell, in which a panel of
judges agreed that imposing voter registration requirements on signature
circulators in Ohio was an impermissible restriction on political speech.
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