On April 28, a New York state court issued an order setting the primaries for U.S. House and State Senate for August 23. The original primary date was June 28, but the primaries for those two offices had to be postponed because there are no valid district boundaries for those two offices yet.
The order says the legislature is free to move the June 28 primary for other offices to August 23.
The order also says a further order will set forth new rules for ballot access. See this story.
On April 27, some voters born in America Samoa asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their citizenship case. The question is whether persons born in the territory should be considered citizens automatically, or whether they need to go through the naturalization process. Fitisemanu v U.S., 21-1394. American Samoa is the only U.S. possession in which persons born there are not citizens; instead they are U.S. “nationals.” Here is the cert petition. Thanks to ElectionLawNews for this news.
The Michigan petition deadline for primary candidates was April 19. Ten Republicans submitted petitions to be on the ballot for Governor. They each needed 15,000 signatures. Any registered voter may sign. The primary is August 2.
Three of the leading candidates’ petitions have been challenged. See this story. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link. The three challenged candidates are James Craig, Tudor Dixon, and Perry Johnson. The Michigan Democratic Party filed the challenges.
New York state legislators and other influential actors have reached no consensus on whether to move the entire primary from June to August, or whether to have one primary in June for statewide, assembly and local offices, and a later primary for U.S. House and State Senate. The districts aren’t set yet for those last two offices. See this story.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing the legislature to amend the election law, regarding withdrawal of candidates, in time to take effect for this year’s primary, which is in June. See this story. The legislature seems disinclined to do that.
