Texas Redistricting blog here says that an April 17 primary for Texas is more likely than an April 3 primary. If the primary does indeed get moved to April 17, independent presidential candidates will only have 27 days to collect 80,778 valid signatures of voters who didn’t vote in the primaries. It is conceivable that the 3 federal judges within Texas who are hearing the redistricting case will notice the unfairness to independent presidential candidates. If they notice it, they have the authority to change the petition deadline.
Do ANY of the MORON lawyers make ANY mention of independents and third parties in the Texas gerrymander case machinations ???
#1 They did notice that the filing deadline for 3rd party candidates had to be changed.
They haven’t noticed that the date for 3rd party conventions is not set relative to the primary date.
The declaration of candidacy deadline for independent candidates is the same as primary-party candidates, and the petition collection period is based on the date of the primary, (and the results of the primary).
Gerrymander math for MORONS — i.e. lawyers and SCOTUS
A Z Tot
1 0 100 100 PACKED
2 55 45 100 CRACKED
3 55 45 100 CRACKED
—————————-
110 190 300
Gee – A 2, Z 1 in winning gerrymander seats.
REAL minority rule = 46 x 2 = 92
How EVIL stupid are the MORON lawyers in gerrymander cases ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
The DC court has stated that they will not have a decision for 30 days….March 2. The District clerks will require 60 days to do all the things they must do … redraw precincts,get new voter cards in the mail, get out the military ballots, layout the electronic ballots…among other things. Thus May 1 possible, (if that soon) is much morely likely than April 17. May 8 even more likely as courts never get things done on time. May 15 is the absolute deadline, though probably not workable, as we must have a Senate District Convention before the State convention…We have a hard date of our state convention of June 6. Not much time to play with. Enjoy
#4 There are also local elections on May 12.
They should go ahead and hold the primary on April 6, for all offices other than congressional and legislative districts. There are 10 statewide races, SBOE races, dozens of appellate court, 100s of judicial districts, and 100s of county races (at least 508 commissioners races).
If there were any changes in county commissioner or JP precincts, they will either be pre-cleared or under court order, so any necessary election precinct changes should already be accomplished.
They believed that they could have an April 3 election with totally new legislative and congressional districts, so surely they can hold an election on the same schedule with no legislative and congressional districts.
Redrawing of precincts is thus minimal. The county registrars should already have programmed in any district changes other than the 3 unknowns. The voting cards can go out with 3 blanks, but with the most important information, the precinct number.
It should be quite feasible to have an election on April 3. The precinct conventions can be held that week, and the county conventions can be held on April 21. “senatorial district” conventions is a bit misleading, since they are actually just a way to subdivide county conventions, in (typically larger) counties that are split by senate districts. They are optional.
TDP rules permit consolidation of senate district conventions within a county, with things like selection of delegates to the state convention based on senate districts. In effect, the senate districts are used as caucuses.
RPT rules permit senate district conventions to share a location, and since they actually select state delegates by congressional district, they further subdivide into senate-congressional caucuses.
But these are totally internal matters, so they can just let the parties use whatever map they want to use. The same is true for allocation of national convention delegates. The Democrats base their allocation of delegates on senate districts, while the Republicans use congressional districts (the allocation among candidates is based on the statewide result).
It is quite likely that there will be Republican senate runoff on June 5 – I bet it could be moved to June 2 (Saturday) if there was a concern about the state conventions. It is possible that there could be a Democratic senatorial runoff as well.
If the legislative and congressional districts are determined by late March (and even this might not happen), then the congressional and legislative districts could be added to the runoff ballot. Most of these races will not be contested. 36% have no candidates; and 42% have only one candidate. Simply declare the sole-candidate to be nominated.
So on the Republican side, you will have a senate race, and 0,1,2, or 3 other races, perhaps an RRC or local race on the ballot. The same will be true for Democrats, but they will have no additional races. If there is no senate runoff, then the whole June runoff can be cancelled in about 2/3 of the state.
The new districts may require changes to the election precincts. But this can ALWAYS be done by splitting the April precincts. Polling places can be be the same as April, but voters would be directed to different rooms, voting booths, etc. based on which part of a split precinct they are in. If the April polling place is not available, then both (all) parts of the split precinct can be moved. So voters will at least show up at the correct location (even if a precinct is not changed, many voters will have no clue which districts they have been assigned to).
And around half of voting is early voting. In Harris County, there can be 100s of different ballot styles, and a voter can vote at any of dozens of locations. Once he is recognized as a voter, the correct ballot is generated for him. He won’t even know that his election precinct is split.
There will be an extremely small number of districts that will require congressional or legislative runoffs. These will be quite localized.
So there would be some added cost for these localized runoffs, in about 5% of the state. And some incremental cost for a modest increase in complexity for a June election. But is simply dishonest to speak of a split primary.