The write-in thread got me thinking. Say I am reasonably wealthy (and probably a little crazy.). The year is 2011. I form and register my own political party, called the Repuglican Party. I legally change my name to Mitt Romney. My brother changes his name legally to Paul Ryan. We are nominated by our own little Repuglican party and get on the national ballot.
All of this is clearly done with the intent to deceive voters into casting their votes wrongly. But is it actually illegal?
You’re not going to get those name changes.
OK, so I scour the country and find a Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan willing to go along with me on this.
Why not? Serious question. A name like Paul Ryan? There’s probably 10,000 of them in the US already. Mitt Romney, not so many.
Ignoring the name issue, this would require you to get tons of signatures in every state to get you on the ballots. Also, the Republicans would probably file suit against your party’s name claiming (rightfully) that its intent is to deceive and defraud.
I doubt a judge would approve your name change, and if the state didn’t stop you from getting on the ballot, the Republican Party would sue (successfully, I bet) to keep your ticket off the ballot.
No state will let you on the ballot. “Intent to deceive” and all that. They’d take your money and tell you no.
There is no “national ballot”.
Wasn’t that the plot of an Eddie Murphy film?
One of the criteria for obtaining a legal name change in my state is proving there is no intent to defraud. That’s going to be harder to do when you pick the name of a famous person and there is no other evidence to offer…such as some familial connection to the requested name.
The actual Republican Party would sue, and the judge would rule it to be a prima facie case of trademark dilution and probably order the baliff to whack your pee-pees.
In any case, if you had the resources you could achieve pretty much the same effect by setting up a third-party run tailored to legitimately attract dissatisfied Republican voters and to have no appeal whatsoever to dissident Democrats.
JFK’s team did this in his first Congressional race, way back in 1946.
His main competition in the Democratic primary was a guy named Joe Russo, so the Kennedy team found a plumber or janitor(I forgot which) named Joe Russo, got the requisite signatures and put him on the ballot to split the vote.
However, I doubt that would be allowed now.
He didn’t have to change his name.
They had no problem getting the guys petitions approved in MA. Doing this outside of the control of party control would get the signatures on the petitions challenged because the signers didn’t realize who the actual candidate was. Doing this as a third party would create a bipartisan effort to quash the candidacy, which would succeed. If fought out in the courts and your phony candidates win the publicity will be too great to bother anyone. That also assumes the candidates win their case in a fictional state where the judges haven’t been appointed by the major parties. In other words, it can’t be done at all past the state level.
Other elections have run into similar issues where opposing candidates have the same name. It leads to some confused voting, but the issue gets well publicized and most voters know the difference between the candidates. Usually one will modify his name to be distinctive.
I had the pleasure of watching a tempest in a teapot where one local candidate running again after losing his mayoral seat reused his Re-elect Joe Blow signs. The other candidates complained that the signs implied he was still the incumbent. He lost anyway.
I also once read of a case involving some race in Minnesota where a third party candidate had his name legally changed to “None of the Above”.
As I recall it, his name change stood, but he was barred from the ballot.
Not relevant to the actual question, but, in California, you don’t need a judge to approve your name change. You just use whatever name you want.
I believe that California’s “Gray Davis” ran for Governor using that name, rather than his formal legal name, Joseph Davis or Joseph Graham Davis. He didn’t go before a judge; he just ran under the nickname of his choice.
Anybody named Romney could be “Mitt.” Anybody named Smith could be “Mitt Romney.”
But, yes, as noted above, the obvious intent to deceive would probably draw judicial intervention.
Many years ago, I remember reading about H. Ross Perot’s lawsuit against a guy who changed his name to H. Ross Perot, listing on the application under reason for name change, “So I can get elected president.” Not sure what happened with the lawsuit.
Thanks.