On April 15, an amicus curiae brief was filed in Alabama Libertarian Party v Merrill, 21-1288, in the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the case over the Alabama law that provides that the list of registered voters should be given free to the qualified parties, but unqualified parties that are petitioning must pay $37,000.

Here is the amicus, which was filed by the Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) and Citizens in Charge. The brief discusses the Copenhagen Meeting Document, which was created in 1990 and which the United States signed. We, and the other nations who signed, promised to “respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law.”

On April 13, an Arkansas state trial court put Sandra Young Harris back on the May 24 primary ballot. She is running for a judicial office. The Secretary of State had removed her after noticing that a campaign finance form she filled out had the wrong subdistrict number. See this story. The judge found that there is a fundamental right to be a candidate in the Arkansas Constitution, and that restrictions are to be liberally interpreted.

Election officials will now need to re-program vote-counting machines.

On April 14, the Republican National Committee voted unanimously that its 2024 presidential nominee will not be permitted to participate in debates that are not sanctioned by the party. The Committee also declared that it will not approve working with the debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. See this story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for this news.

Of course, it is always possible that the Commission on Presidential Debates will now take steps to satisfy the Republican National Committee.