U.S. District Court Judge Jill Otake will hear Reeves v Nago, 1:20cv-433 (U.S. District Court in Hawaii), on August 13 at 9 a.m. This is the case over voting rights for U.S. citizens who move to Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Under federal law, they can’t vote, yet if they had moved to a foreign country, they could have continued to vote absentee in the states in which they had lived before they moved abroad.
On July 29, an Alaska state trial court upheld the top-four initiative passed by the voters in 2020. Kohlhaas v State, 3AN-20-9532. The 20-page decision did not even mention the strongest precedent against the system, Green Party of Alaska v State. In the Green Party case, the State Supreme Court ruled that the Alaska constitution gives more protection for freedom of association for political parties than the U.S. Constitution does. The Green Party decision said that if the Green Party and the Republican Moderate Party wanted to jointly participate in a blanket primary, they may do that, even though the legislature had abolished the blanket primary.
In the top-four case, the Alaskan Independence Party had said that it doesn’t want to participate in the top-four system, but the judge ruled that it must.
Ballot Access News
July 2021 – Volume 37, Number 2
| This issue was printed on white paper. |
Table of Contents
On July 28, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the lawsuit Thompson v DeWine, 21-3514, is moot. This is the case over whether Ohio should have granted ballot access relief to initiatives due to the covid-19 crisis. The opinion says, “The Covid-19 pandemic is unlikely to pose a serious threat during the next election cycle.” Here is the eight-page opinion.
On July 26, the Lansing, Michigan, city council removed the ballot measure asking if voters want to use ranked choice voting. Earlier the council had put that idea on the ballot. The city council reversed itself after the state sent a letter, warning that the city may not have the authority to implement ranked choice voting for its own elections. Thanks to Fairvote for this news.
