On July 6, the South Carolina Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit to obtain a closed primary for itself. See this story. The case is South Carolina Republican Party v Bolchoz, 3:26cv-2699.
UPDATE: here is the Complaint. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis, an Obama appointee.
On July 1, the Delaware legislature adjourned. Bills to move the non-presidential primary from September to April, and to let independent voters vote in primaries, failed to pass. Each had passed in the House, but the Senate didn’t consider them.
The July 9 Indianapolis Star has an op-ed, “It’s too easy to start a new political party in Indiana” by Jacob Stewart, a Deputy Opinion Editor. He does not seem to have done much research into the topic.
Indiana is one of only two states in which it is impossible to create a new ballot-qualified party in a presidential election year (the other is New Jersey). Indiana is one of only eleven states in which it is impossible to create a ballot-qualified party in advance of any election (the others are Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia).
Indiana is one of ten states in which Ross Perot’s Reform Party was never a ballot-qualified party (the others were Alabama, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming).
Indiana is one of only three states in which the Green Party has never placed its presidential nominee on the ballot (the others are Oklahoma and South Dakota). Indiana is one of four states in which the Constitution Party has never been able to place its presidential nominee on the ballot (the others are Arizona, Georgia, and Oklahoma). Indiana is one of three states in which the Natural Law Party never placed its presidential nominee on the ballot (the others are Georgia and Oklahoma).
The op-ed says in Florida, a major party is one in which 5% of the voters are members. But he does not tell his readers that in Florida, a minor party can be on the ballot for all office, merely by filing a list of its officers and a copy of its bylaws. He suggests that perhaps the law should be amended to not recognize a party until it has received a contribution of $1 from as many as 37,000 people, but that principle seems to conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down poll taxes of as little as $3. It suggests that the law might require a party to have members in every county, but that would conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court decision Moore v Ogilvie, which struck down an Illinois law that forced minor party and independent statewide petitions to have 200 signatures from each of fifty counties (Illinois has 102 counties).
The Maine Democratic Party will hold a state convention to choose a new nominee for U.S. Senate. The party hasn’t announced the date of the convention, but it must be held before July 27 to meet the election law deadlline. The party already had one state convention this year, on May 1-2. The process by which the party is settling the details is similar to how all U.S. political parties operated in the 19th century, when parties were more independent of state election laws. It is also a process that resembles how political parties in other nations operate.
On July 8, an organization called Veterans for All Voters asked to intervene in the lawsuit Hunt v State of Texas, n.d., 2:25cv-200. This is the lawsuit filed last year by the Texas Republican Party, arguing that the party has a freedom of association right to close its primary. Veterans for All Voters supports the current open primaries, and asks that it be allowed to intervene in the case so as to argue against the Republican Party. Veterans for All Voters says its members vote in Republican primaries but would not wish to register as Republicans.
