Does anyone know who decides how the candidates' names appear on the ballot?

I was browsing thru TheGreenPapers looking at voting records for WV and KY in 2004 vs. 2008, when I noticed something odd in how the candidates' names were presented on the ballot. Let's see if you notice the same thing I did:

Here are the candidates in WV in 2004 and 2008
Here are the candidates in KY in 2004 and 2008


Did you notice anything? In 2004 candidates were listed either without their middle names or with an initial only. Now this year the candidates' names are presented complete with middle name, so there is Barack Hussein Obama, just in case voters might not be aware of that somehow.:eyes:

Now, when I first saw this I started to get a little heated, but then I looked at a few other states and noticed it was the same on all of them. So now I'm wondering -- do the states decide on how a name is presented on the ballot, or does the candidate dictate that? Does anyone know? I can't imagine why Obama -- or anyone else, for that matter -- would put more than his middle initial on the ballot, especially with the negative press "Hussein" has gotten.

There were no middle names on the primary ballot here in NC.

Maybe I'll contact TGP and ask them why middle names are in vogue this year.

I just checked the Texas primary on that website .... and I can tell you for a fact that the middle name Hussein did not appear on the ballot there. Yet, the Green Papers website has the full name.

I think it's just that website, and not the official ballot.

I originally clicked on this thread to tell you that, at least in Texas, we determine the ballot *order* in each county, and we do it by a drawing -- I have participated in the ballot draw for candidates. But that doesn't speak to the appearance of the name itself. I would say that that is determined by how the candidate files their papers.

But, in your example, I think it's just that website.

I couldn't remember if his middle name was on the ballot here in Illinois, altho TGP shows it that way. It just struck me as very odd it would be included this year and not in previous years.

at least it is in illinois.

...some wanted to put his full name, James Earl Carter, on the ballot. He objected and took the matter to court. He won and used, of course, Jimmy Carter. The objection stemmed from the name of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassin, James Earl Ray.