On September 26, Germany held a parliamentary election. Seven parties won at least one seat. See this wikipedia article. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
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There are two cases pending in Virginia state trial court, over whether Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe should be on the November 2021 ballot. One of them has a hearing on September 29, Wednesday. See this story.
On September 22, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an opinion in Mohn v Bucks County Republican Committee, 74 MAP 2020. The issue was whether a county unit of the Republican Party could remove an elected committeemember from his position for disloyalty to the party. Even though that office is elected in the primary, the Court ruled that the party could do that. Here is the 18-page opinion.
On September 24, the Arkansas Libertarian Party filed this brief in U.S. District Court in its ballot access case. The party already won injunctive relief in 2019 in this case, but the issue of declaratory relief still isn’t settled. The issue is the petition requirement of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The Arkansas legislature had passed a 3% petition in 1977 and it was declared unconstitutional in 1996 in a Reform Party case, and it was declared unconstitutional again in 2006 in a Green Party case, so in 2007 the legislature lowered it to 10,000. But then the legislature raised it back to 3% in 2019, as though the 1996 and 2006 cases had never occurred.
As already noted, on March 29, 2021, a U.S. District Court struck down the Georgia U.S. House petition requirement for independent candidates, and the nominees of parties that hadn’t polled 20% of the vote in the last election for president or Governor. That petition, 5% of the registered voters, is so difficult, no third party has ever done it, and no independent has done it since 1964.
The state has appealed, and its brief in Cowen v Raffensperger, 21-13199, is due October 27, 2021. This is a Libertarian Party case that was filed in 2017.
The state’s decision to appeal probably means that the next session of the legislature won’t pass any bill to alter the requirements. Therefore, the U.S. District Court’s interim order will probably remain in existence. It requires a petition of 1% of the registered voters plus a large filing fee.