On September 7, India B. Walton, Democratic nominee for Mayor of Buffalo, filed a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit in Meadors v Erie County Board of Elections. This is the lawsuit over the constitutionality of the May petition deadline for independent candidates, passed by the New York legislature in 2019. The U.S. District Court had enjoined that deadline.

Walton is an intervenor in the case. The Erie County Board of Elections hasn’t decided yet whether to appeal, but will decide this afternoon.

The New York legislature passed S 7191 on June 10, 2021. It does not permit write-in candidates in partisan primaries unless the write-in candidate is a member of that party. This bill is generally only relevant to small qualified parties, and is supported by them, because they tend to dislike having non-members seize a party nomination against the wishes of the party.

Even though it passed the legislature on June 10, it still hasn’t received any action from the Governor of New York. However, it is not too unusual for their to be a very long time lag in New York between a bill passing the legislature and being acted on by the Governor.

The lawsuit Dowling v DeSantis, s.d., 9:21cv-80796, appears to have been abandoned. It was filed on April 29, 2021, to require an earlier special election for the vacancy in Florida’s U.S. House seat, 20th district. Congressman Alcee Hastings died April 6, 2021, and the Governor said the special election would be January 11, 2022. Nothing has been filed in the case since July 2, 2021.