On May 25, the New York legislature passed S1851 and A1819, identical bills that prevent any qualified party from having the words “Independence” or “Independent” in their names. The bill does not prevent an independent candidate from having those words as part of his or her ballot label. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.
On June 7, South Dakota voters only had one statewide ballot measure on their ballots. It was Amendment C, which would have changed the constitution to provide that future ballot measures that cost more than $10,000,000 in new spending could only pass if at least 60% of the voters voted “yes.” The measure was overwhelmingly defeated; only 33% voted “yes”, and the measure only carried one county.
This result is in stark contrast to the voters of Florida, who several years ago passed a ballot measure to require all future constitutional ballot measures to pass with 60% of the vote.
On June 1, U.S. District Court Joe Heaton issued an opinion in Jones v Stitt, w.d., 5:22cv-278. The issue is Oklahoma’s special election for U.S. Senate that the Governor has called for November 7, 2022, for the Class II seat. That seat is not currently empty. But U.S. Senator James Inhofe, who holds the seat, says he will retire in January 2023. The court ruled that Senator Inhofe’s promise to retire in January 2023 means the seat is effectively vacant starting in January 2023, and therefore the Governor is within his rights to call the special election, which will be held November 2022. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
This means that Oklahoma will have two U.S. Senate elections this November.
The Eleventh Circuit will hear Greene v Georgia Secretary of State, 22-11299, on Thursday, August 11. This is Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s appeal against the U.S. District Court order that forced her to undergo an administrative hearing on whether she meets the qualifications to run for Congress. The Georgia administrative proceeding had determined that she is eligible. But she still contests the decision that permitted the hearing to go ahead.
Here is the brief of the voters who challenged Greene, arguing in support of the U.S. District Court decision that required the administrative hearing.
On June 10, the Wisconsin Elections Commission kept Tim Michels on the Republican primary ballot as a gubernatorial candidate. See this story. His primary petition had been challenged because about half the petition sheets didn’t have his complete address printed on them.
On June 13, the challengers said they would not sue to reverse the decision.
In 2020, the Green Party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates were kept off the Wisconsin general election ballot because some of their petitions had an outdated address for the vice-presidential nominee.
