Recently, Republicans challenged the ballot access petitions of Libertarians running for congress in two states, with differing results.

In Jersey, the challenge knocked Clayton Pajunas off the general election ballot. See this story. He was running for U.S. House, 7th district. That is considered a close contest. Pajunas submitted 72 signatures, and needed 50, but the challenge left him with only 47 valid signatures.

In Wisconsin, where the Libertarian Party is ballot-qualified and nominates by primary, a primary candidate running for U.S. House needs 1,000 signatures to get on a primary ballot. In the U.S. House, 8th district, Jacob VandenPlas submitted 1,200 signatures, and the Elections Commission initially determined he had 1,073 valid. His petition was challenged, but the result of the challenge process was that he had 1,027 valid, so the challenge was defeated.

The 8th district is considered an overwhelmingly safe district for the Republican Party, so it is not clear why there was any motivation to challenge VandenPlas. No Democrat is running.

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.

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.