South Carolina holds its Democratic and Republican primaries (for office other than President) on June 12. On April 20, the Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered to State Election Commission not to mail any absentee ballots until that court hears a challenge to the ballot placement of several major party candidates. See this story. The law requires candidates for state and local office to file a Statement of Economic Interests, and apparently many candidates filed that statement late. At least one candidate didn’t file it at all.

The California Secretary of State has released a voter registration tally, showing totals for each party as of April 6, 2012. Compared to the last tally (the January 3, 2012 tally), the only parties that increased their registration are the American Independent Party, the Peace & Freedom Party, and the Constitution Party (which is not ballot-qualified). Figures are not available for the Reform Party or the Justice Party because those two parties did not re-file their request for a tally in time to be included in this Report.

Democrats declined from 43.63% to 43.49%. Republicans declined from 30.36% to 30.31%. The American Independent Party increased from 2.52% to 2.53%. The Green Party declined from .654% to .648%. The Libertarian Party declined from .548% to .547%. The Peace & Freedom Party increased from .347% to .349%. Americans Elect has such small registration, percentages are meaningless, but it went from 3,165 registrants to 3,104. The Constitution Party went from 121 registrants to 234 registrants. Independent voters went from 21.24% to 21.31%. Members of other parties (all of them unqualified) went from .68% to .81%. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s web page for the complete report.

New Jersey holds presidential primaries for the Republican and Democratic Parties on June 5. Presidential candidates need 1,000 signatures to appear.

The Republican ballot will include Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. The Democratic ballot will include only President Obama. Randall Terry submitted 1,765 signatures to be on the Democratic Party presidential primary, but some of his signatures were rejected because the circulator is not a registered Democrat. When his petitions circulated by non-Democrats were set aside, that left him with only 1,080 signatures. Then, his petition was challenged, and more invalid signatures were found.

Although courts have struck down residency requirements for circulators, no court has yet struck down a state law that says primary petitions can only be circulated by members of that party. Thanks to William Fenwick for this news.