On October 28, the Nevada Supreme Court issued a 6-page opinion in Fasano v Ashjian, 56040, holding the appeal moot.  The case had been filed by Tim Fasano, Independent American Party nominee for U.S. Senate, to remove Scott Ashjian from the November ballot as the Tea Party nominee for U.S. Senate.  The lower court had kept Ashjian on the ballot, and the Nevada Supreme Court said Fasano’s appeal cannot prevail because he waited too long to file his appeal.  Thanks to Glenn Brown for this news.

Fasano had pointed out that Ashjian had signed a declaration of candidacy saying he was registered in the Tea Party, when in fact he did not change his registration from “Republican” to “Tea” for several hours afterwards.  The lower court had ruled in favor of Ashjian by finding that a de minimus violation.

This is the second case in which the Nevada Supreme Court had ruled against attempts to get Ashjian off the ballot.  The other case, which was potentially very bad for ballot access, had been filed by Citizen Outreach, a conservative group, and had argued that the Secretary of State had erroneously put the Tea Party on the ballot and that new parties need two separate petitions, one signed by 250 voters due early in the year, and then a separate petition signed by over 9,000 voters due in the late spring.