Late on September 14, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the order of the lower courts that had stopped the plan for the post office to have its own list of voters and to refuse to deliver ballots from or to voters not on the list. U.S. Postal Service v California, 26A305. Here is the order. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have allowed the plan to go into effect.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was an independent presidential candidate between October 9, 2023, and August 23, 2024. His campaign spent millions on ballot access, and officials in his campaign have not forgotten what they learned about U.S. ballot access laws.
One of the campaign’s officials, Brandon Louhier, has been working hard to establish a new organization that will make all candidacy forms available for free at a webpage. The organization is the Open Ballot Institute. The website will have a vast amount of information about official forms, for anyone preparing to run for public office. Candidates will be able to see the petition forms, the rules for running and getting on the ballot, all on the upcoming website.
The Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. campaign produced other lasting consequences as well. For example, Kennedy won federal ballot access lawsuits against Idaho and Utah which will benefit future independent candidates. And he still has a pending federal ballot access lawsuit in Illinois.
Among the states that are holding regular elections for state legislature this year, Illinois is the only state with no minor party or independent candidates on the ballot for any legislative race.
On Sunday, September 13, the New Mexico Forward Party filed this reply brief in New Mexico Forward Party v Tpulouse Oliver, 26-2145. The issue is the New Mexico election law that requires a new party to file a petition to become qualified, but then (after the party nominates by convention) the law also requires each nominee of the new party to file his or her own separate petition.
The Forward Party complied with the first petition, but for its two statewide nominees, it was unable to collect the needed 14,246 that each needed on separate petitions. The party seeks injunctive relief to put its two statewide nominees on the ballot. If no injunction is received, New Mexico will be one of eight states this year in which all the statewide offices have only the Democratic and Republican nominees on the ballot. The other states are Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, and Virginia (two states, Utah and Washington, have no statewide offices up this year).
This year the South Carolina Democratic Party has a nominee for all 124 state legislative seats that are up this year, the first time since 1990 that the South Carolina Democratic Party has done that.
The South Carolina Senate is not up in midterm years. Only the 124 State House seats are up.
